Sunnydale Heroes
by Wicked Raygun
Summary: AU. Superpowers change everything in this reinterpretation of "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest". Mild B/A, B/X and W/X. COMPLETE!
1. Part 1

**Title****:** Sunnydale Heroes – Part 1 of 7

**Author:** Wicked Raygun

**Summary:** AU. Superpowers change everything in this reinterpretation of "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest". Mild B/A, B/X and W/X.

**Disclaimer:** Based on characters created by Joss Whedon. I am merely borrowing them to put on a puppet show. Watch them dance.

**Notes:** This is not a crossover with the show 'Heroes.' This is merely me borrowing a concept I find intriguing and adding it to characters I love.

Also, I have very little desire to do a word-for-word rewrite of the first two episodes of BTVS. Those kinds of stories seem a little pointless to me. Anyways, any inaccuracies that come up between my story and the actual episodes have to do with either a deliberate choice on my part, or me just not caring that much. Part 1 will have the most in common with the script, since it's slightly inevitable. After that, the story really does become mine.

Also, thanks go out to my beta readers, Grey Wizard and Alun Lewis.

**Distribution:** Ask and you shall receive. Just email me and I'll get back to you quickly using new-fangled technology. See, I get email on my phone now. Surely jet packs and flying cars are just around the corner.

* * *

Jetties of air ran down his body as he soared higher into the air, his speed gaining impossible momentum. With a mere thought, he shot down at an angle, catching a current of wind that blasted more cool, dry air into his face.

He closed his eyes.

When he opened them, he was barely gliding over the rooftops below him. If he let his fingers dangle, he could probably just be able to graze them along the shingles. Another thought, and he slowed for a moment before blasting straight up into the atmosphere, like a rocket destined for outer space.

He climbed, higher and higher and faster and faster. The feeling was exhilarating, dangerous and addictive all at once and he gave into it without any care for his safety. He was a slave to gravity, no more.

The air thinned dangerously. He gasped for a breath that would not come and then, suddenly, he noticed that he could no longer feel his extremities.

He closed his eyes.

This time when he opened them, he was no longer flying; he was freefalling. His arms and legs flailed in the wind, unresponsive to his mental pleas. He tumbled and spun until he could finally glimpse the ground rushing to meet him. He screamed, but the sound was lost in the tumult of wind racing past him.

He closed his eyes.

And he was sure that he would never open them again.

* * *

Jolted awake, Xander's body twisted as he tried to get up. Heart beating, lungs hyperventilating and panic clouding his mind, he threw his head around side-to-side, taking in his surroundings. After a few panicked moments, his mind began to clear and questions began to form. Chief among them, what was he doing outside on the grass?

Not that it was a particularly foreign concept for him. He often camped out in his backyard, particularly around Christmas; although, he usually had enough foresight to take a sleeping bag. It was an effective way to avoid the old Harris holiday tradition of eggnog-induced shouting matches.

But this was a new situation. Xander tried to piece together what he had done the night before. The last thing he could clearly remember was reading some back issues of X-Men, and then…well he must have decided to go outside at some point in the night. He certainly didn't teleport into his backyard.

That thought led him to some quickly fading images in the back of his mind: flashing lights, wind—

Perhaps, he'd been dreaming about flying again. That did seem to be happening a lot lately. Xander looked up wistfully into the sky, but before he could bring his eyes up very high he noticed something unusual.

His bedroom window was open.

* * *

It was a beautiful Southern California morning and despite the previous night's weirdness – which he had quickly dismissed as a strange case of sleepwalking – Xander was feeling energized and ready to take on the world, or at the very least Sunnydale High. He felt different somehow, more alive and more confident then he could remember in, well, possibly ever.

On a whim, he even decided to take his skateboard to school that day, something he hadn't done since junior high. He was more than a little out of practice, though. Oh sure, he was dodging and weaving reasonably well enough, somehow managing to keep his balance in a way that was functional and yet not in any way graceful. His ability to actually stop or even slow down, however, were at best theoretical applications of physics that he was simply not ready to test out just yet.

Of course, destiny had other plans.

Just as he was approaching the school, Xander caught a glimpse of gold in the corner of his eye and turned his head to see what he was sure had to have been the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life. Beautiful short blonde hair, framed a lovely face with a cute little nose. And while she seemed a little short, that only seemed to add to the curves that she had in all the places he liked for a woman to have them in.

Xander withdrew his attention from his new blonde-haired obsession, only to discover that he was mere fractions of a second from having an intimate encounter with a steel railing. Barely conscious of it, he attempted to ollie over it, but he was too late.

He impacted with the railing in mid-air, the metal colliding at the middle of his lower leg. A hollow clang accompanied a very sharp jolt of pain. Inertia carried the rest of his body over and he fell toward the ground.

Only he didn't immediately hit it.

Amazingly, he had simply stopped in midair for brief instant, suspended over what was sure to be very firm ground, in a way that was just not possible. But before Xander could begin to truly register what was happening, gravity seemed to remember him and he fell to the ground – hard, but a lot less hard then it should have been.

Xander slowly stood up, ignoring a small chorus of laughter from around the school yard. The expression on his face was of pure disbelief.

"Now that was an entrance!"

Xander turned to find his best friend Jesse struggling to contain his laughter. "Did you see that?"

"Dude, half the school saw that. Little tip: try to avoid ramming into rails at high speeds. It will just end badly for you."

"What?" Xander asked, confused, before he realized that Jesse meant the crash itself. "No, not that. When I fell, or when I didn't. I—"

_Flew_, he said in his head – but not aloud. That was impossible. There was simply no way that could have happened.

"You what?"

Xander paused for a long moment before saying, "Nothing. I'm just having a wiggy day."

Jesse's amusement was replaced with concern. "Seriously, you okay?"

"Yeah," Xander said, grinning in a way he hoped was reassuring. Oh, he was far from okay. But right now, he couldn't talk about it. "Minor head trauma wackiness. I'm good." And then he began gathering his skateboard and backpack, which had gone in opposite directions after the impact.

Jesse was unconvinced, but before he could pry any further, Xander was blessed with an interruption – his favorite redheaded interruption in the whole wide world to be more precise.

Their other best friend Willow walked right by them, without saying a word. Slumped shoulders, a textbook clutched to her chest and her eyes looking more to the ground then in front of her. Her posture practically screamed to the world that something was bothering her. And even Jesse and Xander were not oblivious to this.

"Hey, Willow, your goldfish go belly up?" Jesse asked.

Of course, knowing something was wrong didn't suddenly endow them with empathy and maturity. They were teenagers, after all.

Willow glared at him mildly, but relented quickly. "I'm fine, Jesse, if that's what you were asking."

"Jeeze, did everybody take a skinny dip into Dawson's Creek today – today of all days when there's actually news worthy of knowing."

"News?" Willow asked, more than happy to be distracted. Like most places, in Sunnydale, change was, indeed, a constant; unlike most other places, however, it was a constant of zero.

"New girl."

That sparked Xander's interest. "Hey that's right. I saw her. Pretty much a hottie. So, tell."

"Tell what?"

"What's the sitch?"

"New girl," Jesse repeated as if that simple statement alone were worthy of a CNN special bulletin, complete with custom music and graphics.

"Well you're a font of nothing," Xander mocked.

"Don't see you bringing the exclusives, Tony Hawk."

"And turning my attention to people I want to talk to – Willow, I'm having some trouble with the math assignment."

"Which part?"

"The math."

"You are so working at Doublemeat for the rest of your life," Jesse said with a chuckle.

"Again, ignoring you." Xander said, ostentatiously ignoring his buddy before he then looked back to Willow. "What do you say, Wills? Be my study buddy?"

"What's in it for me?" Willow asked with an actual smile on her face.

"A shiny nickel."

"Okay, do you have Advanced Theories of Trig? You should check it out."

"Check it out?"

"She means from the library, doofus," Jesse added.

"Right. Where the books live," Willow said.

"Library. Okay, got it. See? I want to change."

They walked into the school together, but before going inside, Xander spared one last look at the railing that he had collided with spectacularly.

"No way," he whispered to himself. After all, it was impossible.

Wasn't it?

* * *

Xander was walking alone to his first period class, when he heard some banging followed by a muffled voice. Following the noise, he came across an unassigned locker. He opened it, and immediately a short, brown haired teenager fell out of it.

"Ow!" The boy hit the ground with a dull thump that Xander just knew had to have been pretty painful.

"Are you okay?" Xander asked as he helped the vaguely familiar teenager off the floor. He was sure he'd seen him around school, but he couldn't quite remember his name. And Xander prided himself at being pretty good with that sort of thing.

"Yeah, I'm kind of used to that happening." The teenager dragged the last word as his eyes settled on the locker he had been freed from. He looked amazed.

"Did someone stuff you in there?" Xander winced as he finished saying that. Well, of course, he had been stuffed in there. What other explanation could there possibly be?

The teenager stared at the locker for a long time before answering slowly, "I don't know."

Xander blinked, but didn't say anything. He began to wonder if the poor guy had been hurt, when the second bell went off, signaling that anyone currently not in class was officially late in a major way. The teenager took off running, presumably to his first class.

Xander, however, merely shook his head. "Okay. Weird."

He was heading to his own class – albeit at a much slower pace then the other teenager – when he heard a small commotion. Someone had bumped into his blonde-haired obsession from that morning, he noted, spilling the contents of her purse onto the floor. The gentlemanly thing to do, he decided, was to help her and then suavely introduce himself, perhaps offer to show her around the school in a way that showed he was capable of talking to girls without saying or doing something stupid.

Instead, he walked up to her and asked very politely, "Can I have you?"

Xander's heart metaphorically stopped. Cold tingles of mortification danced up his spine.

The blonde girl looked back to him, not quite comprehending what he had just said.

"Duh, can I help you?" he clarified after pausing for a nervous chuckle. And without giving her a chance to decide, immediately began gathering her things and handing them to her, hoping to move past this badly-timed Freudian slip through sheer force of will.

"Thanks," she said smiling, apparently deciding not to press the issue.

"I don't know you, do I?"

"I'm Buffy. I'm new."

"Xander. Is, is me. Hi." She thanked him again and they finished gathering her stuff. "Well, uh, maybe I'll see you around. Maybe at school, since we both go there," he finished lamely.

"Great! It was nice to meet you." She turned around and started down the hall.

"We both go to school," he said to himself quietly, chastising his awkward performance. "Very suave. Very not pathetic. Why not toss in that you're a nutty who thinks he can fly?"

He probably would have continued berating himself, but he noticed something on the floor that she left. He picked it up.

"Hey, you forgot your—" He did a mental double-take when his mind finally put a word to the item he was holding. "Stake!"

Xander blinked, several times, barely noticing that Buffy was out of earshot. He came to a decision and put the stake into his backpack.

_My brain's too fried_, he thought. He would think about this later. Besides, he was already exceedingly late for first period. And teachers tended to notice that sort of thing.

* * *

Buffy Summers was a superhero, as implausible as it might sound to most people.

Although, at least according to her, one could more accurately say that she was a retired superhero. With her original foray into heroics having ended with arson charges and psychiatric evaluations, she was looking forward to a much more boring life.

Of course, this was proving to be more difficult than she had initially hoped.

Her day started off well enough, despite waking up from an intensely weird dream that she had quickly decided was better left ignored.

Principal Flutie, at first, seemed to be everything she was looking for in a school administrator. He seemed to be kind, understanding, and willing to ignore her past "transgressions" and give her a fresh start. As a gesture of good faith, he had even ripped up her old school transcripts without bothering to look at them.

But then, while trying to make a point about "starting over," he happened to glance at a few of the more colorful words that made up the reasons for her being kicked out of her previous school.

And then Buffy had to watch in mortified embarrassment as Principal Flutie pulled out a tape dispenser and began reassembling her transcripts right in front of her. It had not been the auspicious start to her scholastic future that she had been hoping for. And despite her earlier optimism, a big part of her knew that things would only get worse.

Buffy shrugged off her depressing thoughts and tried to pay attention to the teacher who was saying something about the black plague.

"If you'll look at the map on page sixty-three, you can trace the spread of the disease into Rome, and then north."

All the students began sifting through the pages of their textbooks. Buffy, being new, didn't have one yet. Determined not to get lost, she began looking around, hoping to catch someone's eye. The stylishly-dressed, dark-haired girl sitting next to her noticed and shifted her posture so that they could share.

"Thanks." Then, after a few moments, the bell rang and the students started to file out of class.

The girl offered her hand. "Hi, I'm Cordelia."

"I'm Buffy," she said cheerily while taking the other girl's hand.

"If you're looking for a text book of your very own, there's probably a few in the library."

"Oh, great, thanks. Where would that be?"

"I'll show you, come on." They rose from their desks and headed into the hallway.

"So you're from Hemery, right? In L.A.?" Cordelia asked her.

"Uh, yeah."

"Oh, I would kill to live in L.A. That close to that many shoes?"

Buffy laughed reflexively. The girl reminded her of some of the girls from her old clique back in Hemery in an oddly pleasant way. She only hoped that this Cordelia had more to her than they did, though.

"Well, you'll be okay here. If you hang with me and mine, you'll be accepted in no time. Of course, we do have to test your coolness factor. You're from L.A., so you can skip the written, but let's see. Vamp nail polish?"

"Um, over," Buffy answered hesitantly. She'd been a little too preoccupied to care about fashion over the last few months, so she wasn't sure about her answer.

"So over. James Spader?"

"He needs to call me!" Buffy drawled her answer with her trademarked Californian Airhead accent, falling back on the speech patterns that she used to use, pre-arson charges.

"Frappuccinos?" Cordelia continued without missing a beat.

"Trendy, but tasty." Buffy was feeling much more confident about her answers now.

"John Tesh."

"The Devil," Buffy answered in a mock-grave tone.

"That was pretty much a gimme, but you passed!"

"Oh, goody!"

The two teenagers approached a drinking fountain where a redhead was taking a drink. She finished in time to see their coming.

"Willow! Nice dress! Good to know you've seen the softer side of Sears."

"Uh, oh, well, my mom picked it out," Willow said in soft, shy voice.

"No wonder you're such a guy magnet. Are you done?"

Willow realized that she meant the water fountain and left, her confidence obviously torn to shreds.

"You wanna fit in here, the first rule is: know your losers. Once you can identify them all by sight, they're a lot easier to avoid," Cordelia said while glancing at Willow.

Buffy laughed nervously, not sure what she should say. She turned toward Willow's departing form and caught her looking back at her briefly before disappearing behind a set of double-doors.

The two continued their way to the library. "And if you're not too swamped with catching up, you should come by the Bronze tonight," Cordelia said just as they were reaching the double-doors of the library.

"The who?"

"The Bronze. It's the only club worth going to around here. They let anybody in, but it's still the scene. It's in the bad part of town."

"Where's that?"

"About a half a block from the good part of town," Cordelia said and then laughed at her own joke. "We don't have a whole lot of town here. But, um, you should show!"

Buffy wasn't really sure if she liked Cordelia after seeing how she had treated that girl, Willow, back at the fountain. Still, it wasn't as if she had vast fields of friends to choose from at the moment. "Well, I'll try."

"Good. So, um, I'll see you in gym, and you can tell me absolutely everything there is to know about you."

"Great!"

Cordelia left. "Oh, that sounds like fun," Buffy said, her voice clearly indicating the opposite.

Buffy made her way into the library, finding it devoid of any other students. She came around a stack and called out, "Hello. Is anybody here?"

She approached a counter hoping to find a bell or something to ring when she noticed an open newspaper with a picture circled in red ink. But it was the ominous caption above the picture that chilled her heart: "Local Boys Still Missing".

Just then, she felt something tap her shoulder. Startled, Buffy spun around quickly to find a middle-aged man wearing glasses and a tweed suit.

"Oh! Anybody's here!" she said after exhaling a held breath.

"Can I help you?" At least his voice came across as wanting to be helpful.

"I was looking for some, well, books. I'm new."

"Miss Summers?"

"Good call! Guess I'm the only new kid, huh?"`

"I'm Mr. Giles. The librarian. I was told you were coming." He headed around the counter, his hand evidently searching for something just out of view.

"Great! So, um, I'm going to need 'Perspectives on 20th Century," she began.

"I know what you're after!" Grinning, he pulled out a large, old, leather-bound book and plopped it on top of the counter with a flourish. But it wasn't the size, age or make of the book that registered with her, it was the word "Vampyr" written in large, gold leaf on the cover.

Buffy paled. _He couldn't be_, she thought in a panic. _Not another one!_

"That's not what I'm looking for," she said after a pause. The need to get away gripped her.

"Are you sure?" Mr. Giles looked suddenly uncomfortable.

"I'm way sure," she emphasized, hoping he wouldn't press the issue any farther.

"My mistake."

He put the book back behind the counter. "So what is it you said," he began before straightening up to look at her again. His sentence was left unfinished when he noticed that Buffy was gone.

Mr. Giles frowned.

* * *

Willow was not a particularly popular girl around school. She could count the number of friends she had on one hand. If she included people she was relatively friendly with – "relatively friendly" being defined as people she felt comfortable enough to wave to – then she was proud to find that she could actually get up to two hands.

Normally, this didn't bother her. In her more daring moments, which admittedly were few and far between, she would even revel in her outcast status. Today was not one of those moments, though. Right now, all she could think about was how much she wished she had someone to talk to.

Her dilemma stemmed from her surety that she was insane. She was crazy, cuckoo, nuts, loco, one sandwich short of a picnic – because the alternative was just impossible. There was just no way she was actually moving things with her mind.

See? Just thinking that made her feel like her sanity was slipping even further away from her. Precious sanity that she was pretty sure she was going to need someday.

At first she had tried simply dismissing the "incidents" – and, yes, that was how she referred to them at the time. In the beginning, they had been random enough to merely be shrugged off. A pencil might roll, a book might shake or a shoe might seem to suddenly hit the back of her ankle.

They were odd occurrences to be sure, but not really worth considering any further. Of course, once the frequency started ramping up, though, she felt obliged to at least start coming up with some sort of plausible explanations:

_Oh__, well, there must have been a minor tremor just now. Sunnydale is near a fault line, you know._

_Or, maybe a cat did that. They are notoriously rambunctious and sneaky._

_Or, that was just a trick of the light. I might need glasses._

This method did work for a little while. But the incidents started becoming more brazen, almost as if they were daring her to explain them away. And she had to admit, she had been running out of creative yet plausible explanations.

But then, last week, she had been reaching for the remote control and it flew into her awaiting hand.

Flew. Into. Her. Hand.

Looking back, she was mildly impressed that she hadn't screamed. Okay, so she did drop the remote control to the floor like it was a red-hot, burning poker and ran to her room as fast as she could. But still, there had been no screaming. That was noteworthy, she felt. It meant that when she was finally sent to the place with padded walls, she might be able to get by with only a light sedative diet. Maybe the nice people in white coats would even let her play Connect Four with the other less dangerous crazies.

These thoughts led to her feeling depressed. She desperately wanted someone to talk to, but she didn't have many options. Oh she loved and trusted Xander and Jesse, but just how was she supposed to broach the subject of telekinesis to either one of them? If it sounded insane to her, she could only imagine what it would sound like to them. And her parents were psychiatrists, so that was right out.

Willow sighed and began pulling a sandwich from a paper bag, and in the process, dropped an apple to the floor. As she bent down to reach for it, it started to float up to her.

"Oh, please stop doing that," she said to her apple, hoping to regain her sanity through polite persuasion.

"Whoa!"

Willow looked up and saw the new girl staring at her and the apple. She never heard it fall to the floor with a wet thud. Her mind was too busy being overloaded with panic.

"Were you doing that?" the blond girl asked amazed.

Willow responded by making a noise that was somewhere between a yelp and a croak. She started shaking her head in denial. Several tears formed in her eyes. With no other warning, Willow got to her feet and ran off, the sound of sobbing following her.

"Hey, wait!"

She caught up to her, grabbing Willow's arm and turning her around.

"Leave me alone!"

Buffy immediately let go and Willow ran off again. She nearly collided into Xander, the same guy who helped her gather her things this morning, and another tall, dark haired, lanky teenager who she hadn't met yet.

Xander turned an accusing stare at Buffy. "What did you do?"

"I, uh, I," Buffy said. She was confused and, therefore, incapable of saying something more coherent.

"Never mind. Don't care," Xander said coldly, while turning around and following after Willow.

The other teenager didn't immediately follow. He glared at her instead.

"It was an accident. I didn't mean to." Buffy's voice had grown quiet by the end of that sentence.

"Yeah, see, you're hot and all, but you just made Willow cry, so I'm kind of obligated to hate you right now. Way to epically suck on your first day at school, though. Seriously, it's inspiring." Then he turned around and followed after his friends.

Buffy sighed. This day seemed to be doing its absolute best to not be normal. She wasn't sure she could take much more.

"Impressive. You pulled off like a nerd repellant hat trick."

Oh, great. Cordelia.

"That was not exactly my intention," Buffy said.

"Oh don't be modest. That's for other people. Anyways, I just wanted to tell you that you won't be meeting Coach Foster, the woman with the chest hair, because gym was canceled due to the extreme dead guy in the locker."

"What?"

"Some guy was stuffed in Aura's locker."

"Dead."

"Totally dead. Way dead."

Buffy paused for a moment. This was none of her business. She didn't do that anymore. She was retired. And retired superheroes didn't suddenly unretire.

"How did he die?" But then again, who was she kidding? She had to know.

"I don't know."

"Well, were there any marks?"

"Morbid much! I didn't ask!"

Buffy wrestled with indecision. There was still time to walk away from this, she knew.

"Um, I gotta book. I'll, I'll see you later."

Buffy grabbed her things and left. The spoiled, bratty teenager inside of her was very angry with herself.

But for the first time in months, the Slayer inside of her smiled, just a little bit.

* * *

Buffy approached the door to the girl's locker room. There was police tape surrounding it, but that didn't stop her. And the thick metal door didn't so much as slow her down for an instant. Padlocks? Please. A little property damage and she was inside.

Finding the body didn't take long, either. She pulled the sheet back that was covering the body and examined the victim's neck. Sure enough, there were too small puncture marks.

She sighed. This meant one thing only: Vampires.

"Oh, great!"

Her determined march back to the library was considerably less stealthy than her trip to the girl's locker room had been. But she needed answers in a very quick way. And right now, she could only think of one person who could possibly give them to her.

She pushed open the double doors with no amount of subtlety and barged into the library. Her patience had eroded with every step of her trip there.

"Okay, what's the sitch?"

"Sorry?"

Mr. Giles appeared from behind some shelves, appearing flustered.

"You heard about the dead guy right? The dead guy in the locker?" Buffy asked.

"Yes."

"Cause it's the weirdest thing. He's got two little holes in his neck and all his blood's been drained. Isn't that bizarre? Aren't you just going, ooo?" she said, finishing with a horrible imitation of the Twilight Zone theme song. She wasn't even close really, but she didn't know that.

Not that it mattered. Giles got the gist of it. "I was afraid of this."

"Well, I wasn't! It's my first day! I was afraid that I'd be behind in all my classes, that I wouldn't make any friends, that I'd have last month's hair. I didn't think there'd be vampires on campus. And I don't care."

"Then why are you here?"

"To tell you that, I don't care, which, I don't, and have now told you, so, bye," Buffy said, pausing after ever other word. The simple question had caught her off guard. She turned to leave.

"Is he, w-will he rise again?" Giles asked, stopping her in midstride.

"Who?"

"The boy?"

"No, he's just dead."

"Can you be sure?"

"To make you a vampire they have to suck your blood. And then you have to suck their blood. It's like a whole sucking thing," Buffy said, using a tone as if she were explaining the whole concept to a three year old. "Mostly, they're just gonna kill you. Why am I still talking to you?"

Buffy turned around to leave again.

"You really have no idea what's going on, do you?" Giles asked her rhetorically. "You think it's coincidence, your being here? That boy was just the beginning."

Buffy felt her mood sinking. Her retirement was becoming needlessly complicated. "Oh, why can't you people just leave me alone?" she asked.

"Because you are the Slayer," Giles answered her in a very familiar tone. Buffy just knew what his next words would be.

"Into each generation a Slayer is born, one girl in all the world, a Chosen One, one born with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires."

Buffy started speaking the same words with him, in a bored tone of voice. "-with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires, to stop the spread of their evil, blah, blah, blah. I've heard it, okay?"

Giles was affronted. "I really don't understand this attitude. You, you've accepted your duty. You, you've slain vampires before."

"Yeah, and I've both been there and done that, and I'm moving on."

"What do you know about this town?" Giles asked, trying to change his tactic of dealing with her. He headed into his office to retrieve some books he had been reading the other day.

"It's two hours on the freeway from Neiman Marcus?"

"Dig a bit into the history of this place. You'll find a, a steady stream of fairly odd occurrences. Now, I believe this whole area is a center for mystical energy. That things gravitate towards it that, that, that you might not find elsewhere."

"Like people moving things with their mind?"

Giles looked at her oddly for a moment, and then considered her question.

"Well, y-yes, I suppose it's possible. I can't say that I-I've read about any instances of telekinesis here in Sunnydale," he trailed off, his mind going over the things he had been researching before. But after a few moments, he continued.

"However, vampires, werewolves, incubi, succubi, everything you've ever dreaded was under your bed, but told yourself couldn't be by the light of day. They're all real and well documented!"

Giles had handed a book to Buffy for every subject he mentioned. She looked at the covers and smirked.

"What? You like sent away for the Time-Life series?"

"Ah, w-well, yes."

"Did you get the free phone?"

"Um, the calendar." He sounded slightly ashamed.

"Cool. But, okay," Buffy said while handing the books back to him. "First of all, I'm a Vampire Slayer. And secondly, I'm retired. Hey, I know! Why don't you kill 'em?"

Giles stammered his reply. "I-I'm a Watcher, I-I haven't the skill."

"Oh, come on, stake through the heart, a little sunlight; it's like falling off a log."

"A slayer Slays, a Watcher—"

"Watches?" Buffy said, interrupting him.

"Yes. No! He, he trains her, he, he prepares her."

"Prepares me for what?" she asked in a grave tone. "For getting kicked out of school? For losing all of my friends? For having to spend all of my time fighting for my life and never getting to tell anyone because I might endanger them? Go ahead! Prepare me."

Giles said nothing. How could he? He had been stunned by the obvious pain and disgust in her voice. He simply watched as she exhaled a long breath and turned away from him. He hesitated for another moment and then ran after her.

Neither of them noticed the dark haired teenager who had been there throughout the entire conversation. He stepped out from behind a stack carrying a copy of "Advanced Theories in Trigonometry". After all, it was the book Willow had asked him to get that morning.

"What?" Xander said, dumbfounded.

Now Xander was known far and wide as a guy who could put together a pithy rejoinder. Or at least, he hoped he would be someday. But in the meantime, however, he had been caught wholly unprepared for a situation where the topic would be the existence of "vampires" and a young woman who claimed to be a "slayer". As in, a "slayer" of "vampires". Or more precisely, a killer of things that existed in monster movies, and in no way, shape or form were real.

Mentally, he scoffed. Vampires stalking the streets of Sunnydale? No, thank you. That was just crazy talk. There was no way that happened.

Just like there was no way he flew that morning.

He frowned.

* * *

Hours later, Xander found himself walking alone along the streets of Sunnydale pondering the mystery that was Buffy Summers.

He'd gotten her last name from one of Cordelia's stooges. She was apparently being targeted by the Queen C's Hive Mind for recruitment. That alone was grounds for loathing in his books. And the fact that she apparently upset Willow meant that he all but had to declare open warfare.

And yet he couldn't easily dismiss what he'd heard that afternoon at the Library. And if he hadn't had his incident with the railing that morning, he's sure that's what he would be doing right now.

Xander stopped walking for a moment and leaned against a wall. It was dark now, he realized with a bit of shock. He must have been meandering for a long time. As it was, he was nearly at the Bronze. Wistfully, he thought it might be nice to drop by the place, but he dismissed the idea out of hand. He shrugged and began the walk back to his house.

That's when a hand grabbed his shoulder and dragged him away.

He was brought forcefully into the middle of an alleyway, where he stumbled to the ground. He got up, facing his attacker.

"What the hell?"

His attacker was a pale-skinned, gloomy man in dark clothes. His frown seemed to be embedded into his skin to the point where Xander felt that he might feel physical pain if he so much as attempted to smile.

"She needs you," the dark man said.

"I'm sorry, that makes sense on what planet, Mr. Grabby?"

"Angel. My name is Angel."

"I'd say 'nice to meet you', except you kind of assaulted me. So, expect me to not be friendly." Xander broke himself away from Angel and took a few steps back.

"I'm not looking for friends. I'm looking for warriors."

"Then bang some bottles together, and maybe they'll come out to play. Good luck with that, by the way. Me? I've kind of already hit my weirdness quota for the day, so I'm just going to leave."

"And go where? You think you can walk away? You're standing at the mouth of hell. There's nowhere to go, nowhere to run. The demons rule the night here. And they're getting hungry."

"Yeah," Xander said after a long pause. "You're crazy. I'm bailing. Good night."

"You need to listen to me."

"Oh? Can you think of a spectacular reason why?"

This time Angel paused. "Because she needs you." Angel stepped closer to him, looking him in the eyes with a blazing intensity, before he spoke again.

"And because I know you can fly."

**End of Part 1**


	2. Part 2

**Title:** Sunnydale Heroes – Part 2 of 7

**Author:** Wicked Raygun

**Summary:** AU. Superpowers change everything in this reinterpretation of "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest". Mild B/A, B/X and W/X.

**Disclaimer:** Based on characters created by Joss Whedon. I am merely borrowing them to put on a puppet show. Watch them dance.

**Notes:** This is not a crossover with the show 'Heroes.' This is merely me borrowing a concept I find intriguing and adding it to characters I love.

Also I have very little desire to do a word-for-word rewrite of the first two episodes of BTVS. Those kinds of stories seem a little pointless to me. Anyways, any inaccuracies that come up between my story and the actual episodes have to do with either a deliberate choice on my part, or me just not caring that much. Part 1 will have the most in common with the script, since it's slightly inevitable. After that the story really does become mine.

Also, thanks go out to my beta readers, Grey Wizard and Alun Lewis.

**Distribution:** Ask and you shall receive. Just email me and I'll get back to you quickly using new-fangled technology. See, I get email on my phone now. Surely jet packs and flying cars are just around the corner.

* * *

"Fly?" Xander said, denying Angel's words unconvincingly. "That's impossible. No one can fly!"

Angel didn't react, allowing him to babble on.

"That's a crazy thing to say," Xander said. "You're a crazy person, with crazy thoughts and crazy words coming out of their crazy mouth."

"I can draw the future."

"See?"

Angel reached for a piece of paper inside of his pocket and handed it to Xander, who stared at the folded item before saying, "What? I'm supposed to look at this and think you're not crazy?"

"Yes," Angel replied calmly.

"Well, okay, then." Xander made no move to unfold the paper, and Angel made no move to force him, which only served to further unnerve him.

"If I, uh, look at this, will you go away?" Xander said while taking a few steps backwards.

Angel said nothing.

"I'll just go ahead and take your silence to mean 'yes'."

Xander stopped backing away and began unfolding the paper in his hands. He noticed that there were actually two sheets of paper. When he opened them fully and saw the first one, he gasped.

It was a pencil drawing of him from the skateboard accident that morning, suspended in the air, inches from the ground with a stunned look on his face. Every detail of the moment was perfect, right down to the clothes he was still wearing. He stared at the picture for a long time, taking in every inch of the drawing, before he looked back to Angel.

"Now do you believe me?"

Xander said nothing.

"I'll just go ahead and take your silence to mean 'yes'," Angel said in a way that somehow managed to not actually sound humorous.

"I, I," Xander tried to speak, but found he had nothing to say.

"The Harvest is coming. The Master will rise. And the world is going to end. Do I have your attention?"

Xander nodded.

"There's a girl: blonde, strong, surprisingly spry. She's the Slayer. If that doesn't mean anything to you now, it will soon. When the time is right, give her this." Angel pulled out a black box and gave it to Xander.

"Wait! How will I—"

"You'll figure it out," Angel interrupted. He turned around and began to walk away. As he turned a corner, he spoke again. "And get off the streets. It's not safe at night."

Xander just stood there feeling overwhelmed for a few moments before going after Angel.

"Wait! I don't understand any of this!" He turned the same corner Angel had and couldn't find him anywhere.

Finally, Xander turned his attention to the black box in his hands. He opened it and found a silver cross necklace.

* * *

Finding the Bronze was less trouble than Buffy would have thought. Cordelia hadn't been kidding when she had said that Sunnydale didn't have a whole lot of town. The bouncer waved her through after stamping an X on her hand.

Given the bleak exterior, the atmosphere inside the Bronze was unsurprisingly dark and foreboding. The shadows that lingered in every nook and cranny of the place seemed almost strategically placed. And, indeed, she saw many teenagers taking advantage of them by groping and fondling one another in relative obscurity. Had it not been for her own Slayer-enhanced vision, she wouldn't have noticed them at all.

Buffy went around the place trying to find anyone from the school, when she noticed someone waving to her. She didn't recognize the boy, but waved back anyway excitedly, desperate to mingle with someone, only to realize to her horror that he had been waving to someone just behind her. She lowered her arm and awkwardly made her way away from the crowd.

Once she broke through the crowds, a flash of red hair caught her attention from the corner of her eye. Willow was sitting at a table, looking dejected and miserable. And it wasn't hard to see why. Cordelia and some other girls who were obviously her cronies were pestering Willow to relinquish her table.

Despite the fact that they hadn't established any deep emotional bond earlier that day – in fact, the whole thing had exploded spectacularly – Buffy felt moved to defend her.

"Cordelia, I've been giving some thought about your advice this morning." The girl and her pack turned their attention to Buffy. "And you're right, it's definitely important to be able to identify the losers around the school."

"What do you say, Willow?" Buffy asked. "Let's leave these losers to their vapid existence."

"Excuse you much!" Cordelia shot back. "We were just leaving, anyway. This table reeks of dweeb." And with that Cordelia and her cohorts left, muttering what were no doubt unpleasant things about Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg.

"Thanks," Willow said, gratefully, forgetting that she had meant to be defensive around this new girl. But anyone who could stand up to Cordelia Chase like that was definitely a person worthy of reconsideration.

Given the good mood, Buffy decided to test her luck.

"You know, a year ago if I had seen what you did," Buffy began. "I probably would have just thought that I was having a brain hiccup and let it go. But I know what I saw, and believe me when I say that out of all the weird things I've seen this year, that doesn't even rate."

Willow stared at the girl nervously.

"So you can move things with your mind," Buffy continued without pausing. She took a seat next to Willow. "That's not something to freak out over. I think it's pretty cool."

Willow slowly started to smile.

"I was kind of hoping you and I could hang out. That's why I came over this afternoon in the first place. You see, I've got this burning desire to not flunk all my classes and your name kept coming up as someone who could help me catch up. That's when I caught the float-y apple show."

Willow took a deep breath. "I'm sorry about that. Not the apple floating, because that's kind of new, but my freaking out post-apple." Willow sighed. "I don't really have someone to talk to about this. Until you saw me, I just thought I was going crazy."

"Well, you're not, as far as I can tell. You're just going through something intense. I can relate. Believe me. Because the thing is," Buffy took a deep breath to compose herself. "The thing is, I'm different too, in the power-y kind of way."

"You can float stuff, too?" Willow asked amazed.

"No. But I can bench press a Harley."

Willow blinked. "What?"

"I'm strong. Like superhero strong. And pretty fast, too. Oh! And I can do back flips and stuff. Well, okay, I could do that before, too, but now it's way easier. I mean, it's not as showy as telepathy or anything, but, you know, it comes in handy."

"Telekinesis."

"What?"

"Telekinesis is moving things with your mind. Telepathy is like mind-reading and stuff." Willow frowned. "And, wow, am I the single most boring person on earth?"

Buffy smiled. "Not at all."

After a quiet moment, Willow spoke again. "Did you know there are a lot of crazy rumors going on about you?"

"Oh? Anything specific?" Buffy asked with a grimace.

"Uh, yeah. Did you really burn down your old school?"

Buffy smiled sheepishly. "Not all of it."

* * *

"Okay, Number Four definitely sucked. Not as bad as Two, though, and miles better than Number Three. But Five? Yeah. Five feels like a winner. Five is respectable. Five is significant. A prime number, that's what's needed here."

Xander closed his eyes and tried to remember his dreams. That feeling of freedom, where flying had been about will alone, as thoughtless as lifting your arm. He was convinced that the dreams were the key. He opened his eyes once again, and felt something stir within him, something powerful, something that ached to be unleashed.

He started running. That powerful feeling in his gut shifted, prepared itself. He placed a foot on the ground, and all his weight shifted onto it. Propelled by his forward momentum, he braced himself against his leg and leapt forward with outstretched arms.

And then he was flying. Somehow his body willed itself forward beyond the reach of gravity. A profound joy gripped him.

No, wait. That was gravity.

He fell back to the earth gracelessly. His body rolled head-over-heels before he came to a complete, and painful, stop.

"Prime numbers are overrated," he said with a dragged-out groan.

He stayed there for a couple minutes, in that awkward, tangled heap of limbs, pondering Attempt Number Five.

It had certainly hurt more than Two and Four, but definitely no more than Three, the reigning champion of pain and humiliation. Of course, the real question was: had he actually started to fly that last time, or was that just his imagination?

He smirked. Of course, there was the distant possibility that after Attempt Number Three he had knocked himself unconscious and had simply dreamed the last two attempts. A twinge of pain when he shifted his weight killed that thought quickly. Somehow, he doubted unconsciousness would hurt this much.

Xander frowned. He was mostly sure that the strange powerful feeling had been more than just inertia. He could swear something had clicked, or at least, almost clicked in those final tenths of a second.

"Okay," he said to himself. "Time for Number Six."

He got up slowly, but determinedly. After a limb-by-limb inspection of himself to prove that everything was still attached and functioning, he tried to capture that feeling again.

And failed miserably. Again.

_To hell with it_.

After the crash from Attempt Number Six, he got up quickly. Somehow, his anger and frustration had blown past all his aches and pains. He marched over to his backpack and pulled out the two pictures that Angel had given him earlier.

The first picture had shown him hovering inches from the ground after he had collided with a railing, an event that had happened that morning.

The second picture, though, was different. It didn't show the past. It showed the future. Or at least, he thought it did.

In the picture, he was wearing the same clothes he had on now. But he was flying. And not just hovering, either. No, he was actually flying. According to the picture, he was easily a couple hundred feet off the ground. And it was definitely him in the picture, too. The goofy grin plastered onto his face was far too unflattering to be merely an artist's whimsical interpretation.

Xander sighed while looking at the picture. A big part of him wanted to crush the pieces of paper in his hands into a ball and forget everything about this day.

Instead, he folded the papers neatly and put them in his backpack. Home, he decided. He would fly another day. For now, what he needed was sleep – and possibly a chiropractor.

He left the dark, empty playground.

In any other town, it might seem odd to have cemeteries next to public parks. But the people of Sunnydale rarely gave it a second thought, anymore. There were twelve cemeteries in good old Sunny D, and nearly as many public parks – the Mayor of Sunnydale had never met a public works project he didn't like – there was only so much town to go around and, well, you had to put the things somewhere, after all.

Besides, thanks to the zoning laws, most of them were beautiful, well-kept places and were open to the public, anyway.

So, with all that in mind, it was understandable that Xander would cut through a cemetery to get back home. He'd done it many times in the past and it had never been a problem before.

But tonight would be different.

They just seemed to appear in front of him. One moment he was by himself, the next moment, they were there. Two of them: a man wearing a white jacket that was straight out of Miami Vice, rolled up sleeves and all, and a blonde girl wearing an honest-to-God catholic school girl uniform. They both smiled at him.

"Hi," the girl said in a shy voice. "We're kind of lost. Do you know how to get to The Bronze?" The girl leveled a look at Xander that nearly made him trip over himself. He never did well when he was suddenly confronted by a pretty girl.

But the Don Johnson lookalike just rolled his eyes. "Oh, give me a break, Darla. There's nobody around. Let's just grab the schmuck, and take him to the Master."

"Ugh, Thomas, haven't I taught you anything? You should never miss an opportunity," the girl said, trailing off. She smiled, and her face changed into something out of a nightmare.

"To play with your food," she finished.

Suddenly, Xander was hoisted into the air. Thomas had just suddenly seemed to appear right in front of him and lifted him by his shirt. His face was the same as Darla's. Only know Xander noticed something else.

His teeth were now fangs.

"Who says I don't like to play with my food?"

And then Thomas threw Xander into a tree. There was a thud, sudden pain, and then he fell to the grass.

Thomas picked him up again, this time by the neck, only for Xander to knee him in the groin. He let go of him and stumbled backwards a few steps, cradling the sensitive area as he whimpered.

"You ass!" Thomas said after a few seconds, his voice seething in frustration as he heard Darla laugh. "Who does that?"

Instead of defending his manliness, Xander started to run.

He didn't get very far, before Darla caught up to him. She gripped him by the shoulder and yanked back hard, sending him crashing onto his back. Then she launched a kick into his stomach that knocked the air out of his lungs and sent him careening onto a fresh grave.

When she got close, Xander had enough foresight to grasp some dirt and throw it at her face. She sputtered, and took a few steps back. He took a shaky breath and got to his feet.

Thomas had recovered by then and closed in on them at incredible speed. But Darla stopped him with a powerful hand to his chest.

"No, wait. He's got spirit. I think I'll keep him and beat it out of him."

A jealous look crossed Thomas's face, and he snarled at her. "We're supposed to bring offerings to the Master."

"And we will. But first, I want a new toy."

"No! Guys who knee me in the junk get killed hard. They don't get eternal life."

"I hardly think we should hold good aim against him. And besides," Darla said, turning a hard look on him, "since when do I let you make decisions?"

Thomas just scoffed, pretending not to be afraid of her. "Fine. Whatever."

"Good, boy." She turned back to Xander. "As for you, how about some fun?" She sauntered over to him.

"You're vampires," Xander said shakily.

Darla smiled. "Yes, we are."

Xander looked within himself, desperately thinking back to those moments where he felt something stir within him.

"Can you fly?" Xander asked.

Darla frowned at him. "I think I may have hit you too hard. And, no, we can't fly."

Xander felt a powerful sensation surge through his body. He smiled at her.

"Good."

And then he shot up into the night sky.

* * *

After about a half hour of talking about their respective super powers, the girls decided to walk home from The Bronze.

"Vampires are real?"

"Yes," Buffy answered patiently for the third time. Willow looked like she was about to hyperventilate.

After a long pause, Willow asked, "Now when you say 'vampires', are we talking full-on Dracula here, or is it more like Anne Rice?"

"Actually, it's a little bit closer to Lost Boys. Only they don't blow up when you kill them. Well, okay, that's not exactly true. But instead of a shower of blood, they get all dusty."

"Okay," Willow said slowly, "So, no explosions of blood. That sounds like a good thing, I guess. Especially in this day and age. The last thing you want to do is catch, um, you know, certain stuff."

"Ugh, I try not to think about that part too much. I actually asked my Watcher about that once, and he assured me that vampires can't transmit diseases. But still—" Buffy shivered visibly.

"And," she continued, "where slaying is really brutal is in the fashion. I've had to sacrifice many a cute blouse to the cause. Vamp dust may come out with a little bit of baking soda, and even blood comes out of certain things if you know what you're doing. That doesn't protect my clothes from getting ripped to shreds, though. And I can't sew to save my life. So, for a while there, I was wearing my ex-boyfriend's letter-man jacket. Those things are shockingly sturdy – really helped cut back on the wardrobe fatalities."

Willow had smiled and remained quiet throughout Buffy's rambling. After a while, she noticed.

"I'm freaking you out, aren't I?"

"Completely the opposite. I'm just amazed that I'm actually having a conversation with someone about the more practical aspects of vampire hunting."

"Slaying."

"Right, I meant, 'slaying'." Willow looked thoughtful. "The Slayer – that's such a cool codename."

"Technically, it's more of a title."

"It does sound very officious."

"Actually, it sounds like a death metal band. But I've learned to cope. Mostly."

The two girls giggled.

Willow quieted down and then asked, "Do your parents know?"

Buffy shook her head sadly. "No. Not really. I tried to tell them after the fire, but that didn't work out too well for me. They had me committed for a while," she finished quietly.

"Oh, god," Willow said quietly, a stricken look on her face.

"Yeah. After that, my parents started to fight a lot more. I mean, they always fought, but after that, they didn't even bother to try to hide it anymore. The divorce should be finalized in the next couple of months."

They walked in silence for a few moments, before Buffy began to talk again.

"You were right not to tell your parents. They probably wouldn't understand. Even if you tried to show them what you can do, they might not even notice it. In my experience, most people go into major denial when confronted with this kind of stuff. I mean, I killed a vampire in front of the entire graduating class that year. But all anyone seems to remember is me lighting the place on fire, which I didn't even do on purpose."

Willow looked at her skeptically, but nodded anyway.

* * *

Darla was furious, confused as well, but mostly, she was just enraged. Her Prey had gotten away from her. She couldn't remember the last time that happened. Admittedly, it was the most unique escape she had ever seen. But nevertheless, she prided herself on being an artist of death. And what had happened at the cemetery made her feel like an amateur. She had been getting sloppy lately.

And the worst part would have to be that she was going to have to report her failure to The Master who should be rising even now.

_What a great way to greet the newly risen doom of __humanity_, she thought sarcastically.

She turned a glare on her hunting partner Thomas, who still had a bewildered look on his face. "Go," she ordered him. "Find food. And stop looking like such a simpleton."

He nodded and left, still looking dazed. Darla frowned at his clothes. She really needed to speak to him about them. He was starting to stand out too much with his dated clothing. What a vacuum for fashion the 1980's had been.

Darla took a moment to compose herself, getting into character, and then made her way to the bar, searching for an easy mark. It wasn't long before she struck up a conversation with a teenager named Jesse.

"So, um, what did you say your name was?"

"Darla."

"Darla. You know, I haven't seen you around before. Are you from around here?"

"No, but I have family here."

"Have I met them?"

She grinned at him hungrily. "You probably will."

* * *

Giles was thoroughly unhappy. He had botched this entire day miserably. Weeks of planning and not a small amount of string pulling from the Council, completely gone to waste in one day.

A Slayer who didn't want to fulfill her calling? Who had ever heard of such a thing?

Once again, Giles found himself wishing he could get his hands on the journals of the girl's previous Watcher. But the Council still hadn't located them all. The man had been far too paranoid and kept his notes in many different places, without informing the Council.

Giles winced at the thought of how they found the man with an apparent gunshot wound to the head. He then shook the thought from his mind, focusing on his ire.

In complete desperation, he had even gone to that damn club and found nothing. Bloody teenagers and their pathetic excuses for music, he fumed. And to top it all off, he realized that he had some reports to finish. His cover at the library wasn't a particularly difficult job, but it did generate an obscene amount of paperwork. And now he had to make his way back to the school.

He had been crossing the campus grounds when it happened.

Someone landed, or rather crashed into the ground. His momentum caused him to skid on the grass, almost bouncing along it before he tumbled to the ground in what looked to be a painful heap.

The flying man stood up on shaky legs and then fell over again, laughing hysterically.

"Bloody hell."

**End of Part 2**


	3. Part 3

**Title:** Sunnydale Heroes – Part 3 of 7

**Author:** Wicked Raygun

**Summary:** AU. Superpowers change everything in this reinterpretation of "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest". Mild B/A, B/X and W/X.

**Disclaimer:** Based on characters created by Joss Whedon. I am merely borrowing them to put on a puppet show. Watch them dance.

**Notes:** This is not a crossover with the show 'Heroes.' This is merely me borrowing a concept I find intriguing and adding it to characters I love.

Also I have very little desire to do a word-for-word rewrite of the first two episodes of BTVS. Those kinds of stories seem a little pointless to me. Anyways, any inaccuracies that come up between my story and the actual episodes have to do with either a deliberate choice on my part, or me just not caring that much. Part 1 will have the most in common with the script, since it's slightly inevitable. After that the story really does become mine.

Also, thanks go out to my beta readers, Grey Wizard and Alun Lewis.

**Distribution:** Ask and you shall receive. Just email me and I'll get back to you quickly using new-fangled technology. See, I get email on my phone now. Surely jet packs and flying cars are just around the corner.

* * *

Xander stood up on shaky legs and laughed.

Amazingly, he didn't feel much pain from his rough landing, but his heart was thumping in his chest like a crazed bongo, so he was pretty sure that was just the adrenaline flowing through his veins like an open faucet. Likely his body was going to be just one big aching, bruise tomorrow, but he didn't care.

Because he could fly!

He threw his hands in the air and whooped in victory. And just for the hell of it, he started spinning around yelling like a maniac. After a particularly loud exclamation, he stopped spinning, opened his eyes – and came face-to-face with the High School librarian.

"Uh, hi," he said lamely as he lowered his arms.

Giles nodded to himself, coming to some sort of decision and reached into the inner folds of his tweed jacket. He pulled out something small, square and black and then pressed it to Xander's chest.

Xander was aware of an intense pain before he fell to his knees, barely conscious. Then Giles reared back his fist and knocked him out with a solid punch.

Giles sighed, put away his stun gun and grabbed Xander by his ankle, dragging him into the High School.

This was all he needed, he thought to himself in a sarcastic sneer.

* * *

A couple hours later, Giles was parking outside Xander's house. The young man had been remarkably forthcoming, once he woke up. And he was very thankful for that. It had been years since he had cast any magic, and the only spell he knew that would compel someone to tell the truth wasn't exactly something he was capable of doing on a mere whim even when he had been at his most depravedly powerful. As it was, the simple spell he used to merely confirm that Xander was, indeed, human had been more than enough to leave him with a faint headache. He was very out of practice, after all.

Of course, he supposed the lingering ache could also very well stem from the fact that the Slayer had barely been on the Hellmouth for less than a week and had already completely blown her secret identity. The girl had barely finished matriculating! But then again, that had been as much his fault, as well. Giles made a mental note to put a bloody bell by the library doors to signal when someone came in – someone like, say, a boy who could fly, and for some reason was tasked to help the Slayer.

And then combine the drawings Xander gave him with the other more traditional portents he had been documenting and the outcome could not possibly be good. And truth be told, this Angel fellow sounded dubious to him as well – a mysterious benefactor who claimed he could see – correction – draw the future. Prophecy in a pencil sketch, indeed! The Watcher in him couldn't help but find the whole concept unseemly. Regardless, he needed to contact this Angel and see if he had anything else on this Harvest he had warned them about.

Xander, meanwhile, had been simply staring at his house, showing no sign of leaving.

"Mr. Harris?"

"Yeah?" Xander asked quietly.

"I feel it necessary to remind you once again that Buffy's identity must remain a secret. You cannot tell anyone else about this."

"Right. Because then the bad guys will know where Buffy lives and go after her family." Xander turned to Giles, with a small smirk. "That's pretty much Superhero SOP."

"I'm sorry?"

"Standard Operating Procedure. You don't watch a lot of TV, do you?"

"Not if it can possibly be avoided."

"I won't spill the beans on Buffy. I mean, I'm supposed to help her, right?"

"I suppose so. Your grand entrance, as it were, was remarkably well-timed. One could take that as a portent that you are needed in some way. Or that you simply haven't learned to steer yet."

Xander smirked at the idea of his "grand entrance" but frowned when Giles criticized his flying.

"Well, okay then, Mr. Critical. Next time, you can fly, and I'll sit back and make snide comments."

Giles chuckled, ignoring Xander's mock indignation. "You should get some sleep. We'll meet tomorrow."

When Xander had climbed out of the car, Giles stopped him.

"Mr. Harris?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"What did it feel like?"

"You mean flying?"

"Yes."

Xander thought about his answer for a long moment. "It felt like freedom. Like there was nothing I couldn't do. It was amazing. Hands down, the greatest thing, I've ever felt. I'm sure that's a dumb way to put it, but – Yeah, it felt like freedom."

Giles was silent for a moment, before he said, "Actually, I think that sounds almost poetic."

He gave Xander a small smile and drove off.

* * *

The next morning, Buffy had convinced her mom to let her walk to school. It really wasn't that far, she told her, and she really wanted to get some exercise, anyways. Or at least that had been the excuse. In reality, she just wanted a little time to digest what had happened to her yesterday.

Namely, that she had told someone that she was the Slayer. And, so far, the world hadn't exploded into apocalyptic goo. Maybe this time things would be different.

It helped, of course, that Willow had her own secret to keep. She may not be able to understand everything that Buffy had gone through, but they did at least have a common ground to build off of. This was all a new experience for Buffy. She finally met someone who didn't doubt her sanity when it came to the darker aspects of her life. And on top of that, Willow could help her catch up so that she might actually manage to somehow graduate from High School.

Buffy smiled. Yeah, it was going to be a good day.

And that's when she saw him.

It was one of Willow's friends from yesterday, one of the guys who came to the girl's defense when they thought she had insulted her. It was the same guy, in fact, who had been nice enough to help her with her bag, a guy who may or may not have been hitting on her at the time. It was kind of hard to tell.

_Oh, God, what was his name? Uh, Xander? That was it, wasn't it?_

Xander was just there, sitting on some stairs that led to the High School. He finally noted her, and stood up quickly. He jogged his way over to her as if they had known each other for years. His face had a small, friendly smile on it. Not like that threatening scowl from yesterday that made her feel like some sort of lowly bacteria.

Maybe Willow had told him to be nice?

"Hi, my name's Xander," he said with no actual attempt to ease into a conversation. "We met yesterday. Twice. Both under very awkward and possibly offensive circumstances. Anyways, uh, the bottom line – I know that you're the Slayer. And I'm here to help you."

Buffy stared at him for a long moment.

"I'm going to kill Willow," she said in deadpan voice.

"What? Why?"

"She told you," she answered incredulously. "She promised she'd keep it a secret."

"Hey, Willow didn't tell me anything. I found out on my own – Wait! Willow knows?"

Just then, they heard Willow calling out to them. They both turned around to see her jogging up to them, waving excitedly and with a happy look on her face. When she finally made it over, they simply continued staring blankly at her.

"Oh, God. Is there something on my face?" she asked as she started desperately pawing around her nose.

* * *

"What did you do? Take out an ad in the local newspaper?"

"Hey, Watcher Boy! You blabbed, too!"

"That is completely different. Xander discovered your identity on his own, due to our carelessness. Meanwhile, you've told her completely of your own volition. Honestly, what on Earth would possess you to tell a complete stranger your darkest secret?"

At this, Buffy tensed up and spared an awkward glance to Willow. "Uh, well, no reason really. She just seemed like a nice person," she said unconvincingly.

Willow stood up from the table she and Xander had been sitting at since they entered the library.

She quietly cleared her throat to get their attention, which she did. When they turned toward her, she fought past a near-crippling need to run away. "Because she found out my secret," she said meekly.

"What secret?" Xander asked, feeling confused and a little hurt. Willow told him everything, didn't she?

Willow turned to Xander, looking apologetic. "This secret."

And then she turned her head toward an errant book left on the table.

The book shook for a moment and then unsteadily began to lift into the air. It wobbled a little more and then came back down. It was then that Willow breathed a sigh of relief.

"I've been practicing that since last night. It doesn't always work. And it sometimes gives me a small headache. But I am getting better."

They all stared in stunned amazement. The silent awe was finally broken by Xander.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked hurt.

Willow opened her mouth, but said nothing. There was so much to say, but she had no idea where to start.

Giles cleared his throat. "Well then, I suppose I can understand now why Buffy spoke to you, Ms. Rosenberg. Mr. Harris, if you would be so kind as to repeat what you told me last night." He looked thoughtfully at Xander. "I suggest you tell them everything."

Xander nodded.

"In the meanwhile, I need to contact someone who might know something about this Harvest."

As Xander started telling his story, Giles made his way to a small office. He closed the door and picked up a telephone. He dialed a number and waited for someone to pick up.

"Yes, hello, this is Rupert Giles calling from Sunnydale, California. I need to speak to Quinton Travers, please." There was a pause as the person on the phone spoke to him. "Yes, I understand what time it is over there. But I assure you, this is urgent."

There was an even longer pause this time. "Tell him, I've found another one. Trust me. He'll want to get back to me."

* * *

For as long as Willow could remember, she had been a good student who always paid attention in class. She wasn't the sort of person to get distracted from learning – at least, not until today. But she figured that at least she had a good reason.

She had a superpower. And Xander had a superpower. Her new friend Buffy had several superpowers. They were superpowered people. She frowned. That couldn't possibly be a word. Were they mutants? That sounded vaguely prejudiced, didn't it? Oh! Didn't the DC Universe use another word? Metahumans?

Willow smiled. Metahumans. She kind of liked the sound of that. It had more of a modern politically-correct kind of feel to it. It even felt kind of empowering. She bounced the word in her head a few more times, finding that she liked it more and more. She would run it by Xander and Buffy later to see what they thought of it.

Jesse would vote it down of, course. He was a bigger Marvel freak than even Xander was and would only refer to DC comics as "the other guys", while making disparaging remarks about Superman's virility.

Willow felt suddenly ill. Jesse didn't have a power. Did that mean that they would have to lie to him about vampires and demons? Would that mean they couldn't hang out with him, anymore?

A look crossed Willow's features. It wasn't something seen on her very often. Xander and Jesse lovingly referred to it as her "Resolve Face".

No, she thought. Jesse was their friend. They could trust him with anything. Buffy and Giles would simply have to deal with that. For their lunch break, she was supposed to meet them in the library to see if Giles had found anything on the Harvest. She would find Jesse herself, and made sure he was there, too.

It was then that a voice came over the P.A. system.

"Mrs. Epstein?" it said with a crackle of static in the background.

"Yes?"

"Could you have Willow Rosenberg please report to the Principal's Office?"

"Yes, of course."

The teacher spared a look to Willow and then motioned her to the door. As she stood, Willow then gave a look to Buffy, and then proceeded to gather up her things and leave the classroom.

While walking along the halls, she wondered briefly why she had been called out of class. She hoped it wasn't because of something bad that she did. She turned a corner and came upon the outside of the school offices. There was Xander, talking to a police officer, his face pale and stricken. She made her way over to him, concern flooding her system.

"It's Jesse," he told her. "He didn't come home last night."

* * *

Far beneath the High School, directly below the library, in fact, there was a chamber. It was the remnants of an old church that had been buried underground by an earthquake. It had not been the result of a natural event. An ancient evil being, so old that he no longer even remembered his own name, had been reawakened. And there he sat, amidst the skeletal remains of the church, seething and plotting. His very presence was a mockery to the walls that once were part of this house of worship.

The ancient evil frowned. He felt hungry.

"Darla," he called out.

"Yes, Master."

Master was the only thing anyone ever referred to him as, anymore. Sometimes they would switch it up with a "My" or a "Great". He liked that. It added variety and showed that they cared.

Back in the days of the Black Plague, when he had been running around the Spanish countryside, many of his servants referred to him as "Maestro," which was the same word used for "Teacher". He didn't enjoy that as much. It didn't quite imply the same level of subservience that he looked for in his minions. He eventually instituted an English-only policy, after that.

Of course, that had all been before he crossed the pond, as it was said, before he began his search for the true Mouth of Hell, before he found his favorite child, his Darling One. He could never begrudge her anything for long, even her ill-advised dalliance with that so-called artist who broke her heart. Children often made mistakes.

Darla, meanwhile had been standing there patiently for him to give her an order. He smiled at her.

"I apologize, my dear. I've been feeling a bit nostalgic lately. It's been distracting me. What I wanted to ask was, could you bring me a snack? I'm feeling hungry again."

Darla stiffened. "Of course, Master. I'll bring the boy we found, only—" she said, trailing off.

"Only what?"

"Well, I," she paused. "You see, I was a bit hungry earlier, and I—"

"Tasted him," he finished for her, a note of tension in his voice. She nodded fearfully. "I see. I'm your faithful dog. You bring me scraps." He leaned forward and said quietly, "You disappoint me, child."

Darla said nothing, as she shook.

"Well," he said jovially, the previous tension in his voice gone. "Waste not, want not. I only wanted a light snack after all. Bring him in."

Darla practically tripped over herself as she hurried out of the chamber.

"Oh, Darla," he called again.

"Yes, Master."

"Don't disappoint me again."

Darla said nothing. She only nodded gravely, and then quietly left the chamber.

The Master smiled wistfully.

Oh, yes, children often made mistakes and that was understandable. Still, spare the rod and spoil the child, as they say. It was a bible verse about discipline that he rather enjoyed, and he was a big believer in discipline. He would think up a suitable punishment for her later.

Or perhaps not. She was after all, his favorite child. And he could forgive her anything.

What else was a father supposed to do?

* * *

Darla fumed as she walked to the pantry. The "pantry" was a bit of a misnomer – a bad pun, to be more precise. "Dungeon" would really be more accurate. But let it never be said that vampires didn't have a sense of humor.

She sneered as she walked past Luke, the Master's most loyal lieutenant. Darla was favored, but Luke was distinctly more trusted. This, of course, sparked a bit of a rivalry between the two of them that neither would ever admit to the other. So when Darla caught Luke smirking at her with an I-told-you-so look on his face, she knew he had heard her minor dressing-down by the Master. Of course, a dressing-down from the Master to anyone but her often ended in maiming, at the very least. The Master was particularly fond of gouging out eyes. It was his thing, he told her once.

She stomped past Luke, doing everything in her power to ignore him and not appear petulant, both of which she failed at. She couldn't help it much. If the Master was her father, than Luke was her annoying older brother.

As she came to the cell that held Jesse captive, she could distinctly hear some ragged breathing and moaning coming from him. That was good. If he had died from the minor blood loss he suffered, the Master might very well take one of her eyes – favorite child, or not.

Darla grabbed a key off a peg on the wall, and opened his cell. When she entered, she noticed that he was more or less in the same position she had left him in, face-down in the middle of the cell. She strode over to him, placed her foot under his shoulder and flipped him onto his back.

Jesse's glazed eyes tried to focus on her. He couldn't make out all the details, everything was still fuzzy to him, but he recognized her blonde hair.

"Y-y-you bit me."

"Y-y-yes, I did," she said, mocking him. "Up and at 'em, lover boy. The Master is hungry."

"What?"

"Not so bright, are we? Or maybe it's just the blood-loss?" She shrugged. "Well, whatever. Come on."

Jesse's eyesight had cleared enough at this point to finally see the demonic visage that was her face. So when she came toward him, he tried to back away. But Darla was quicker. She grabbed him and hefted him up to his unsteady feet, and began to drag him along.

"Stop. Please," he begged in a quiet voice. When she ignored his plea, he started to fight back by grabbing her arm. Darla responded by throwing him up against the bars of the cell.

If she was surprised when he slipped out of her grasp, she was absolutely shocked when he seemed to just fall through the cell to the outside.

They stared at each other, surprised. Jesse recovered first and tried to make a run for it. Darla was on him a moment later, grabbing him by his shirt. One moment she had him, and the next he was simply no more tangible than air it seemed. And he took off again at a weak, clumsy run.

"Stop him!"

Jesse continued to run for his life. His steps were awkward, forced and lumbering, only to get worse every time Darla would grab him. Then he'd stumble, somehow get her to let go, stumble some more and keep going. It was a very slow pace he was setting. He didn't understand what was going on with him, but he didn't care, either. He just wanted to escape.

And then a giant man, with a hideous face blocked his way forward. The horrible man snarled at him. Without thinking, Jesse tried to pick up his pace, hoping to plow right through him, hoping that adrenaline and desperation would take over where physics and logic demanded he stop.

Jesse closed his eyes and ran right through him as if he was nothing. He didn't stop to contemplate this, he just kept going.

There were twists, there were turns and there were hands, so many hands, grabbing him from everywhere imaginable. But somehow, he was able to keep going forward.

He passed through a closed door to come into a chamber of some sort. And then he saw them: two yellow swirling eyes. He looked into them, and through them. There was nothing else in the world left but those eyes.

"Stop," a voice said.

He did. Jesse suddenly felt a little sleepy.

"That's an interesting trick. How did you do that?" the voice asked.

"I don't know," he said in a slow, sleepy voice.

Jesse never saw the blow that knocked him unconscious.

**End of Part 3**


	4. Part 4

**Title:** Sunnydale Heroes – Part 4 of 7

**Author:** Wicked Raygun

**Summary:** AU. Superpowers change everything in this reinterpretation of "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest". Mild B/A, B/X and W/X.

**Disclaimer:** Based on characters created by Joss Whedon. I am merely borrowing them to put on a puppet show. Watch them dance.

**Notes:** This is not a crossover with the show 'Heroes.' This is merely me borrowing a concept I find intriguing and adding it to characters I love.

Also I have very little desire to do a word-for-word rewrite of the first two episodes of BTVS. Those kinds of stories seem a little pointless to me. Anyways, any inaccuracies that come up between my story and the actual episodes have to do with either a deliberate choice on my part, or me just not caring that much. Part 1 will have the most in common with the script, since it's slightly inevitable. After that, the story really does become mine.

Also, thanks go out to my beta readers, Grey Wizard and Alun Lewis.

**Distribution:** Ask and you shall receive. Just email me and I'll get back to you quickly using new-fangled technology. See, I get email on my phone now. Surely jet packs and flying cars are just around the corner.

* * *

Three teenagers burst into the Library at the same time.

"Giles!"

"Yes, yes, what is it?" Giles asked in a rushed tone, responding to the urgency in their voices.

"Jesse is missing!" Xander said.

"Who?"

"Jesse. He's our friend." Xander took a moment to look dejected. "I was supposed to meet him last night at the Bronze. I can't believe I forgot."

Xander and Willow took some time to explain the situation to Giles.

"And the police want to write it off as him being a runaway!" Willow said, nearly crying as she finished the story.

Giles hesitated before speaking. "Not to sound impolite, but is there any chance of that actually being the case?"

"No way," Willow said with complete confidence in her voice.

"Jesse's home life was pretty much 'Leave it to Beaver'. He loved his family. There's no way he'd bolt," Xander said.

Giles sighed. "Alright, let's assume that something did indeed happen to him, something supernatural. I'm afraid that there isn't much we can do."

"I could look for him," Buffy said, pleadingly.

"I second that idea," Xander said quickly. "And I'm going with."

"No, you're not."

"He's my friend. So, yeah, I really am."

"Go where?" Giles asked pointedly.

The teenagers deflated.

"The only lead we have is that he **may** have been at the Bronze last night. Did either of you two actually see him there?" he asked, directing his question to Buffy and Willow.

They shook their heads dejectedly.

"And even if you did, the club is closed until tonight. You won't be able to talk to anyone until then." At the depressed look of the teenagers, Giles continued, "I understand you want to find your friend. That's understandable – admirable, even. But without more information, the best thing we can do is to continue researching—"

"Angel!" Xander said suddenly. When he saw the blank looks on everyone's faces he said, "You know, dark, mysterious I-can-draw-the-future guy. He might know where to find Jesse."

"I suppose that is a possibility," Giles said, considering the idea. "Did he give you a means to contact him?"

Xander's mood soured again. "No. He didn't," he said quietly. But then his eyes lit up. "But he did give me this!"

He ran to his book bag, which he had thrown haphazardly on the floor. After a moment of searching, he pulled out a small black box and handed it to Buffy.

"Angel said that I was supposed to give you this when the time was right."

Buffy opened the box and found the silver cross inside.

"Um, it's really pretty," she said unsure about how she was supposed to use the cross to find Jesse. "But I don't know how this is going to help us."

She began to pull the necklace out of the box to examine it further, and noticed that as she did a small compartment was revealed. And in this compartment was a folded up piece of paper. Buffy opened it up and saw a picture of her and Xander talking to a pale man sitting on a red chair.

"Is this Angel?"

"Yeah, that's him."

"Freaky. Are you sure he's not just a stalker?"

"Guys, look," Willow said. "There's an address on the back."

Buffy flipped the drawing over and sure enough, Willow was right.

"Looks like I'm coming with, after all," Xander said with a smirk.

* * *

Roughly an hour later, Buffy and Xander found themselves at a rather run down apartment complex. Xander knew the area pretty well, so they had arrived quickly enough.

The only real delay had been when Principal Flutie had caught them trying to leave the school. With a little verbal shuck-and-jive, they managed to get away from him and then go over the fence. Buffy had leapt over acrobatically, while Xander just flew. Both were pretty impressed with the other.

After that, Buffy had asked him lots of questions about flying, though many of them he couldn't answer since it was all still new to him. When she asked if happy thoughts worked, for example, he mumbled something about "attempt number three," and grimaced.

Finally, he just said to her, "Look, when I got a better hang on it, I'll take you up sometime."

He had meant it innocently enough, and was still very worried about Jesse, so he missed the odd look Buffy had given him afterwards.

He, in turn, had also asked her several questions about slaying and vampires, all of which she answered rather easily, having been down this road with Willow the night before. She didn't open up quite as much to Xander as she did with Willow. She held some things back, like being committed to an institution, her Watcher killing himself to save her, and the senior named Pike who had dropped out of school and ran away to parts unknown after helping her.

She wasn't sure why she held so much back, except to say that Xander was a boy, and she generally never felt that comfortable talking about private stuff with boys.

But soon enough, they had arrived at their destination. Xander knocked on the door. After a few moments, Angel's voice told them that the door was open. They stepped inside and found him sitting on the red chair from the picture.

"You know it's funny," he said to them, while smiling disarmingly. "I had just sat down, too."

"We need your help," Xander said, cutting to the chase.

"That's an understatement."

"My friend, Jesse, he went missing last night. We were wondering if you could help us find him."

Angel paused. "I'm sorry to hear that. I heard that vampires were out feeding last night. So if your friend went missing, then he's probably dead. Or worse. You shouldn't bother looking for him."

Xander looked like he had been slapped, so Buffy took over. "Do you know where he might be or not?" she asked impatiently.

He hesitated. "Yes."

"Then tell us."

"No."

"Are you sub-human or something? Vampires sometimes take people alive to feed on later. Jesse could still be alive."

"But more than likely, he's not. You're a Slayer. You know that better than anybody. It's pointless to try and go after him."

"We're trying to save a friend! You do know what that's like right? Having friends? People you care about?"

A sad look crossed Angel's features, before he sighed. He stood up and wrote some directions on a piece of paper and handed it to her. Buffy looked at it and then nodded.

"I don't suppose you're coming with us?" she asked.

"I'm not interested in dying just yet."

"Yeah, I pretty much thought so. Let's go, Xander."

Just as she was walking out of the apartment, Angel said, in a quiet voice, "Don't go."

"Deal with us going," she said, without skipping a beat.

Buffy did not so much as pause at the dour man's concern, but Xander hesitated a moment. He glared weakly at Angel and then left, too.

When they were outside, Buffy asked if he was okay.

"I thought that, you know, that he was a good guy," he said, sounding disappointed and bitter. Buffy felt that he may have been hero-worshipping Angel a little. Then Xander's face hardened. "Whatever. We don't need him. Let's go find Jesse."

"Right."

* * *

"A mausoleum?" Xander asked a half hour later when they were walking into the graveyard indicated by Angel's directions.

"Yep."

"Seriously? A mausoleum? That leads to a sewer?"

"Yeah, I got to admit, I've been doing the Slayer thing for a while now and that's a new one on me too. You freaking out?"

"No. And maybe a little yes."

"Well, as long as you're so sure."

"No, I mean – okay, see the thing is, I'm not freaking out. But I am kind of freaking out about the not freaking out, you know?"

"Not really. But don't let that stop you."

"I mean, yesterday my life was like 'uh-oh, pop-quiz!' Today, I'm trying to deal with the fact that my best friend's Jean Grey, my other best friend is being held by vampires, and, oh yeah, I can fly – which is completely cool, and yet utterly useless down in a sewer."

"All valid points, but I'm sensing there's more to this."

"Yeah, see, the thing is none of that freaks me out. And it should be, right? I mean, okay, vampires. We're having a conversation with vampires in it. Heck, I'm carrying a cross and stake that my High School librarian gave me to fight vampires with. I should be **way** more freaked out about this. At the very least running and screaming in a manly fashion. And yet, I'm not. What does that say exactly?"

At that moment, they arrived at the mausoleum. Buffy took the pause in the conversation to look into Xander's eyes, and spoke seriously. "It means you want to save your friend."

He nodded somberly at that.

"So stop freaking about not freaking, and let's go do some heroics."

Xander smiled. "Aye, aye, Captain."

* * *

Back at the High School, Willow was continuing to help research for Giles during her computer lab time. She had finished the actual assignment given by Miss Calendar in about two minutes. Now, she was going through some newspaper records looking for possible signs of The Apocalypse, or possibly just a regular old apocalypse without the capitalized "The", since, according to Giles, this kind of thing happened every now and again.

She didn't want to dwell on the idea much.

It was then that she overhead Cordelia and Harmony spreading rumors about Buffy. At first, she tried to ignore it. It was Cordelia, after all. The girl probably couldn't help but be horrible to everyone that wasn't in her clique. But after a while, she just couldn't stand it anymore.

Someone asked her why Buffy had been kicked out, and Cordelia called her a psycho loony. That pissed her off.

"No, she's not."

"What?"

Willow turned around in her chair to face them. "She's not a psycho. You don't even know her."

"Excuse me? Who gave you permission to exist?"

Willow turned away, furious. She was going to be the better person. She was going to be the better person. She was going to be the better pers—

"Do I horn in on your private conversations? No. Why? Because you're boring."

Willow's eyebrow twitched. _Bitch got to go._

She stood up carefully, making a point to not show any hostility or malice, and went to deliver the class assignment that she had printed out ages ago. When she was right behind Cordelia, she noticed that Harmony had placed her purse next to the monitor they were using.

A quick mental shove and the purse toppled over spilling its contents everywhere. Cordelia and Harmony busied themselves picking up the various makeup supplies and other loose ends that had fallen out.

The next part of Willow's revenge was a little bit more delicate. She focused on the keyboard, with gentle telekinetic nudges.

**Alt ****F4**

_No, I do not want to save changes. But thanks for asking._

**Tab**

**Space bar**

When Cordelia and Harmony cried out that their program was gone, Willow smirked.

Vengeance delivered.

* * *

"You're making too much noise."

"Huh?"

"I said you're making too much noise. Your footsteps are echoing."

"What? Do you got like super hearing, too?"

"Yes."

"Damn. How come I only get just one?"

Buffy glared at Xander.

"Sorry. Just thinking out loud."

"Well, stop that. We're trying to be stealthy." She turned away from him and kept easing her way down the tunnel.

Xander paused for a moment, and then continued. "Uh, is this any better?"

Buffy stopped walking, but didn't bother to turn around. "You're floating, aren't you?"

"Um, yeah," he said sheepishly.

Buffy rolled her eyes and tried not to let her amusement show in her voice. "Show off."

She failed.

After another ten minutes of quietly moving down the tunnels, Buffy spoke again. "They're close."

"How can you tell?"

"No more rats."

Xander grimaced, but said nothing. He was quickly coming to the conclusion that Vampires were not good people to hang around with.

Eventually, they came to a wooden door, the type one would see on a house. It obviously didn't belong down here.

Buffy motioned for Xander to stay quiet, and checked the handle. It wasn't locked. She took a deep breath and opened the door quickly.

And there was Jesse, face down on the floor.

"Jesse!" Xander stopped floating and went over to him. He shook him for a moment and was relieved when he started moaning. He blinked several times before staring at Xander in confusion.

"Xander?"

"Jesse, man, are you okay?"

He shook his head. "I am not okay, on an epic scale. It's been the weirdest day."

Buffy shined a flashlight on a chain that was attached to Jesse's leg. When Jesse saw it, he groaned. "Oh, come on, seriously? A chain? The guys with weird faces wasn't enough?"

"It's cool," Xander said to him, reassuringly. "Buffy's a superhero."

"Hold on," Buffy said. When she grabbed the chain and snapped it in two, Jesse's mouth fell open.

"Do you think anyone heard that?" Xander asked, looking around nervously. And sure enough, they could hear vampires heading toward them, and moving fast.

"You okay to run?" Buffy asked Jesse, checking him over for any wounds.

In response, Jesse stood. "I am cold, pissed, starving and terrified, but I will **so** run like the wind to get the hell out of here."

"Sadly, for you, it won't be that easy."

Jesse groaned. "Oh, come on. Not you again."

Standing off to the side was Darla and a group of vampires who all had their demonic faces out. They were all smirking.

"I wasn't aware that we were expecting guests." She turned her head to Xander. "Just fly in, did we?"

Xander gulped. He finally recognized her from the night before.

Darla looked to the vampires on either side of her. "Well, what are you waiting for? Kill them."

The vampires rushed in, and Buffy met them with well-aimed punches and kicks.

Xander moved to help her, but then he felt a sharp pain on his shoulder that made him cry out and fall to his knees. He turned to see Jesse gripping his shoulder like a vice. In a split second, Jesse's other hand grabbed him by his shirt. He let go of his shoulder and lifted him up with a single hand, leaving his feet inches from the ground in what should have been an impossible feat of strength.

"Jesse? What are you doing?" Xander asked, with fear lacing each word.

His friend shook his head, and looked at him confused. "I don't know. I just feel so – so hungry." And then, Jesse's face changed into that of a vampire. "I need to feed."

"Oh, God."

Jesse smirked. "Sorry. Don't think he's listening."

"Xander!"

A blonde blur tackled them to the ground. From the tangle of limbs, Buffy emerged, lifting Xander up and tried to drag him away, but she felt Jesse grab onto her wrist. She reeled a fist back and then punched him.

But her fist hit nothing.

She tried again and again, but each time her fists seemed to just go through him without connecting.

"Cool, huh? Now let me try."

Jesse's hand dove at her neck, like a snake. It phased through her skin and came into contact with her throat. And then he just seemed to squeeze. She tried to breathe, but a pain unlike any she had ever felt before overcame her.

Xander was shocked to see what his friend was doing to Buffy, but was able to recognize that he had to stop it. He tried to hit him, but had the same problem Buffy had: his hands just went through him. Thinking quickly, he grabbed the flashlight that was hanging off his belt and flashed it in Jesse's eyes.

"What the hell?"

Jesse backed away from Buffy. This gave her a chance to take a deep breath and send a kick to Jesse's midsection.

"Come on," she managed to say while coughing violently. "We have to leave now!"

"But Jesse!" Xander pleaded.

"He's not your friend anymore!"

They ran.

Unfortunately, the route they had taken was soon blocked off by quite simply the biggest vampire Buffy had ever seen. She tried to surprise him with a jump kick, but he batted her away like she was merely a pesky fly. She recovered enough to try a simple punch and kick combination, only to have each move blocked effortlessly.

Thankfully, Xander managed to get out a vial of holy water that Giles had given him, and he threw it at the vampire's face. The vial broke, spilling its liquid contents all over the large vampire's chest. It roared in pain. And with this distraction, Buffy and Xander were able to run past him.

They continued on, but soon enough other vampires appeared and the two teenagers had to improvise. So now, they were taking a new route into different tunnels. They had no clue if this would lead them outside, but they had little choice. A left here, a right there, their route was random and meaningless, but it was better than waiting for the vampires to catch up to them.

And then they came to a dead end.

It was a fairly large open space for a sewer, extending out in a thirty foot diameter circle. The only possible exit, other than the way they came in, seemed to be a tunnel. But the entrance to it was forty feet up a sheer wall. At one time there had been a ladder that led up to this tunnel, but it had apparently been broken off years ago.

"Xander, we need to get up there, now!"

"Right!"

Xander pulled Buffy towards him and held her around her waist, while she put her arms around his neck. She had barely just enough time to process just how awkward this was to do with someone she barely knew before they started floating up.

At that point, she was too amazed to care.

When they were halfway up, Xander felt a sudden pain on his foot. He looked down to see the large vampire he hit with the holy water holding onto his shoe by a single hand. Xander shook his leg and his shoe slipped off, taking the vampire with him.

But with Xander's distraction, what had once been a controlled ascent turned into a near panicked flight. He misjudged the distance to the top, and hit his head on the ceiling. If not for Buffy's quick reflexes he would have tumbled down forty feet into a sea of hungry vampires. She managed to catch him, and get onto the ledge safely – an impossible feat for anyone other than a slayer.

After that, she led a stumbling, punch-drunk Xander down the tunnel. Eventually, they came to a manhole and exited onto an empty street.

Breathing heavily and still running on adrenaline, they looked at each other and realized something horrible.

They had failed.

* * *

Back in the tunnel, Luke raged.

"They escaped! Impossible!"

"And, yet, true," Darla said, sounding annoyed. While Luke continued his ranting, she turned to the Master's new child. "You. The one who could fly knew you. He called you Jesse. Who is he?"

Jesse looked at her, confused, but answered anyway. "His name is Xander. I've known him since we were kids."

"Is he some sort of mage?"

"Mage?" Jesse asked with clear amusement. "No, but he is a level four paladin. Now, if you don't mind, I have some questions of my own."

"You dare presume to give us orders?" Luke asked, now focusing his ire on Jesse. "You will do as you are told, you insolent brat, and answer our questions."

"Let me think about that – Uh, no. I don't think so."

"You dare mock me?"

"Pretty much, yeah. But don't take it personal. I mock everyone. It's my thing."

Luke roared and shot out a devastating hook that would have knocked Jesse's head off – would have, if it connected. Instead the punch sailed right through him.

"Hey, do that again. I could use a breeze."

Frustrated, Luke swung with his other fist. Again, nothing.

"Hey, batta, batta! Come on, batta! Swing!"

Another fist. No contact.

"Strike three. You're out."

Jesse smiled and then jumped through Luke. When he was on the other side he reached through his back and found the vampire's heart – and then he squeezed.

Luke fell to the floor, screaming in pain, while Jesse just laughed maniacally.

"That's right. Kneel before Zod, bitch!" Jesse taunted. "Hey. I'm curious about something—"

Jesse pulled out Luke's heart. First the heart, and then Luke turned into dust.

"Huh. Looks like I could," Jesse said to himself thoughtfully. He theatrically dusted off his hands and then turned to Darla, who stared back at him in utter shock. This fledgling had just killed possibly the most powerful child that the Master himself ever sired.

"How did you do that?" she asked, quietly.

Jesse just smirked.

"Okay, I get it. You're curious about me. And who can blame you, really. After all, I'm a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, with a creamy nougat center. But let's start with my needs. As you can imagine, I have a lot of questions, but we'll start out with this—"

Jesse's amusement was replaced with a threatening scowl.

"What the hell am I?"

**End of Part 4**


	5. Part 5

**Title:** Sunnydale Heroes – Part 5 of 7

**Author:** Wicked Raygun

**Summary:** AU. Superpowers change everything in this reinterpretation of "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest". Mild B/A, B/X and W/X.

**Disclaimer:** Based on characters created by Joss Whedon. I am merely borrowing them to put on a puppet show. Watch them dance.

**Notes:** This is not a crossover with the show 'Heroes.' This is merely me borrowing a concept I find intriguing and adding it to characters I love.

Also I have very little desire to do a word-for-word rewrite of the first two episodes of BTVS. Those kinds of stories seem a little pointless to me. Anyways, any inaccuracies that come up between my story and the actual episodes have to do with either a deliberate choice on my part, or me just not caring that much. Part 1 will have the most in common with the script, since it's slightly inevitable. After that, the story really does become mine.

Also, thanks go out to my beta readers, Grey Wizard and Alun Lewis.

**Distribution:** Ask and you shall receive. Just email me and I'll get back to you quickly using new-fangled technology. See, I get email on my phone now. Surely jet packs and flying cars are just around the corner.

* * *

"Children?" The Master yelled in white-hot fury. "My Luke, my chosen Vessel, was destroyed by children?"

Darla believed that if the Master suspected that Jesse had killed Luke, that he would destroy him without a second thought. And she just could not abide that. Jesse was powerful, and showed great promise. Truthfully, she hadn't felt this way since her sweet Angelus had been cursed.

Determined not to lose him, she had quickly destroyed the other vampires who witnessed Luke's death, and coached Jesse into lying. It was a gamble, but one worth the risk.

"Not just any children, Master," Darla said in supplication. Favored or not, she knew that she was treading a very thin line. "The boy who could fly, that I told you about before, he was there. And a girl, faster and stronger than any human should be."

"A Slayer?" the Master asked in disgust.

"That would be my guess. Her name is Buffy."

The Master snorted. For him, Slayers were merely nuisances that rose up to challenge him from time to time. They were powerful, true, but easily enough dealt with. As it was, he had long gone bored with their kind. They were all too predictable. A mere word from him, and they would bare their necks and beg for death.

Damn this prison. If he were free, she would already be nothing more than blood, dripping from his lips.

"And this other one, this one who could fly, why was he here?"

"His name is Alexander, my Master. And he came for your new child."

"Ah, yes, the new blood, as it were – the one who can walk through walls. Tell me, child, what is your name?"

"Jesse, Master. My name is Jesse McNally," he answered, remembering to be respectful. Darla had told him that the Master was powerful. And here in his presence, he could truly feel it. Disobedience was unthinkable.

The Master looked long and hard at his new child. Darla had warned him about this. How sometimes he would stare into a person and would somehow simply know their deepest, darkest secrets.

"No. That is not a fitting name for my new Vessel," the Master said at last. "From now on, you shall be known as Cain. After all, it was you who slew his brother, my favorite son."

Darla tensed. _Damn!_

"Kneel," the Master commanded softly.

Although a small part of him wanted to resist, Jesse practically threw himself on to his knees. It was just like that moment when he had tried to escape. His thoughts were simply not his own anymore.

"You put my favorite son on his knees, and, without a second thought, tore out his heart, didn't you?"

"Yes, Master," Jesse said quietly, compelled to obey. A throbbing pain began to flare from his head, just behind his eyes.

"What is your name?"

"I – I am Cain, my Master," he said, his voice strained from the ever-increasing pain.

"And what are you?"

"I am – I am – ahh!" Jesse finally screamed in pain. "I am your servant!"

"And?"

"I am your son!"

"And?" the Master repeated, quieter than ever.

"I am your Vessel!"

"Very good."

The pain stopped, and Jesse – no, Cain, he reminded himself – felt an immense relief. He wanted nothing more than to collapse, but could not.

"You may rise, my son." Cain did so. "Now, I want you to understand something. I do not tolerate disobedience, but I do applaud initiative. Destroying a potential rival is understandable, after all. You are powerful, ruthless, and intelligent. If you can control your pride, the world will open up to you and dribble its sweet, red nectar upon your lips."

"Yes, Master," Cain said, grateful for the praise.

"One more thing, I do not like to be disappointed. Isn't that right, Darla?"

A small mewling noise came from the floor, where Darla's quivering body had collapsed. A substantial amount of blood was leaking from her eyes, mouth and nose.

"Oh, I nearly forgot." The Master released his mental hold on Darla, and immediately the shaking lessened. She turned her head slowly to the Master, and then passed out.

"She will need time to recover," he said to Jesse in a mock-whisper. "Come then, my new son, there is much to do: chanting, blood-letting, and such. But before all that, I would like you to tell me about this Alexander and Buffy. Actually, I'd like to get to know all your friends."

"I'll be sure to bring them to you soon, Master."

The Master smiled. "Excellent. It's important to remember friends and family."

* * *

It had been a long, quiet, miserable walk back to school for Buffy and Xander. Their efforts had all been for nothing. Jesse had been dead before they even found him. Even worse, he was now a vampire. There was nothing they could do now.

For Buffy, it was a familiar sting. She couldn't even remember how many people she had lost since she had been Called. Lothos and his minions had been feeding for weeks before she even met Merrick and found out she was the Slayer.

She sighed deeply. Some "Chosen One" she was. This was exactly why she wanted to retire in the first place. Whatever upper-echelon being had decided she would be some sort of hero, must have been playing some sort of cruel practical joke on the Universe. There couldn't be another explanation because, really, why else would they choose someone who kept failing?

As they finally walked into the school, Buffy spared a glance to Xander who had been just as quiet as she was. There was no telling how he was dealing with this. Frankly, she was amazed he was functioning at all. Okay, he had been quiet, too, so he was probably stewing in his own juices, at least as bad as she was. But it had been he who had dusted himself off first, and started walking toward the school. A good thing, too, because when they hit the surface, she had no idea where they were.

She felt the need to say something to him, but what? It wasn't exactly like there were Hallmark cards for this sort of situation. But just as Buffy was about to open her mouth to try and say something, she heard an upset voice.

"Sneaking into the Girl's Bathroom – honestly, Mr. Levinson, do you have any idea what sort of lawsuit you could have exposed the school too?"

"I – I didn't mean to, Principal Flutie. I, uh, got lost, sort of, and just wound up there."

"Oh, of course, you did, Mr. Levinson," Flutie said back to him sarcastically, while rolling his eyes.

"No, really! It was an accident. You have to believe me. I've been having the weirdest couple of days, now."

"I don't want to hear it. This school has a non-tolerance policy against sexual harassment."

"Harassment?" the boy asked in a horrified and squeaky voice. "But – but, it's after school! And there was no one there! Oh, please, Principal Flutie, you've got to understand. I didn't mean to go in there. I—"

Flutie interrupted him, when he finally spotted Buffy and Xander.

"Oh, look, if it isn't the disappearing duo. How kind of you to grace this school with your presence. Next time, though, you might want to try it during school hours. That's usually when the teachers are here."

_This is not good._

Despite how unassuming he appeared, Flutie just had one of those voices that could rip someone to shreds without ever raising an octave. Like a caring parent who didn't get mad, just disappointed. So it was with genuine dread that Buffy faced this man.

"Uh, Principal Flutie—" Buffy began to say.

"It was my fault, Sir," Xander said, beating her to the punch.

Buffy turned her head and stared at him incredulously.

"You know how my friend Jesse is missing?"

Flutie nodded hesitantly.

"Well, you see, I wanted to go look for him. I thought I might know where he was."

"That's all well and good, Mr. Harris, but you should have said something to the police instead. Or me."

"I, uh, was pretty upset, Sir. It didn't really occur to me. And, I guess, I wasn't really thinking things through. You shouldn't punish Buffy, though. She just went to make sure I didn't do anything stupid."

"I see."

After a long moment, Principal Flutie finally spoke again. "Very well, Mr. Harris, I'll forego any administrative actions against Ms. Summers, considering the situation." Flutie took a moment to turn his attention completely on Buffy. "However, you should know that this is a one-time thing. If you should try anything else in the future, I won't hesitate to call your parent and/or legal guardian."

"You mean, my mom?"

"Here at Sunnydale, we don't discriminate against non-traditional families," he told her with a smile.

"Oh. Um, thank you?"

"You're welcome, Ms. Summers. But I'm afraid I can't make the same offer to you, Mr. Harris. Tomorrow. My office. Detention. Understood?"

"Yes, Sir."

Flutie sighed. "You're not a bad kid, Mr. Harris. But you keep making bad decisions. That's something you should stop doing."

Xander nodded, his face seeming bashful.

Flutie began to walk off with Mr. Levinson in tow, but then turned around.

"Did you find your friend?"

Xander hesitated a moment. "No, Sir. We didn't."

"Well, don't worry about it too much. I'm sure he'll turn up soon."

"Yeah, me too," he answered him, a sad undertone in his words.

Flutie gave him a small smile and walked off.

Xander's expression slowly began to change from a somber one to one that looked on the verge of exploding.

But despite how he looked, his voice sounded calm, when he said, "Well, I guess we should be just grateful he didn't notice that I'm missing a shoe."

"Xander?"

He just shook his head. He didn't want to talk. His joke had been a way to avoid precisely that.

An urge to ask him if he was okay, gripped Buffy, but she ignored it because he obviously wasn't. Instead, she decided to say something else.

"Thanks for covering for me. You didn't have to do that, you know. It was above and beyond."

"Don't worry about it. I told Giles that I'd help with the secret identity thing. Seems like the least I can do, really."

"You're probably gonna hear it from your folks, huh?"

Xander scoffed. "Not if history is any indication."

"What do you mean?"

"You remember how I said Jesse's folks were 'Leave It to Beaver' types?"

"Yeah?"

"Mine aren't."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm used to it."

Buffy had no idea what to say to that, so they continued on to the library in silence.

When they came through the double doors, they were spotted by Willow who was looking up from reading an old book.

"Did you find Jesse?"

"Yeah," Xander answered quietly.

When she noticed that he wasn't with them, she asked with dread, "Was he dead?"

"Worse," Buffy said. She sat down on the other side of the table from her. "I'm sorry, Willow. We were too late. And there's something else."

"Yeah, it looks like Jesse was holding out on us. He had powers, too," Xander said, finishing for her.

"Powers? You mean he was a metahuman, as well?" Giles asked.

Xander looked thrown by the question for a moment, and then turned to Willow with a skeptical look on his face.

"DC Comics? Really? Do I need to bring back the list of Twenty Reasons Why Captain America is Cooler Than Superman?"

"I thought it sounded empowering," Willow said to him, asserting her point of view with a quiet but assured tone and a hint of Resolve Face crossing her features.

"Okaaay," Buffy said, wanting to continue the conversation without acknowledging their weirdness. "Anyways, yeah, he was a metahuman, if that's what we're calling the super-powered people who aren't me. Or, I guess, a meta-vampire, if you want to get technical about it."

"What was he able to do?"

"He was phasing," Xander said.

"Come again?" Giles asked him, confused by the term.

"Phasing. Like Shadow Cat."

Everyone but Willow gave him a confused look.

"You know, from the X-Men?"

The looks continued.

"It means he can move through solid objects," Xander said while rolling his eyes. "It's actually a pretty impressive power to have."

"I got to agree with that one," Buffy said. "I couldn't touch him at all. Meanwhile, he just sort of put his hand **in** my throat and started squeezing. Not a fun time." Her hand unconsciously rubbed her neck at the memory.

"I see. That presents a problem."

"Yeah, kind of hard to stake what you can't hit."

"Whoa, staking! Who said anything about staking Jesse? He's our friend. He's just – he's just confused. We can talk to him," Xander said, looking alarmed. Willow sat up straighter at the mention of staking as well, looking no less panicked.

Giles and Buffy exchanged looks.

"Xander, Willow," Giles began, looking at them sympathetically. "I'm sorry for the loss of your friend, but—"

"We haven't lost Jesse, yet!" Willow said almost yelling.

Giles paused for a moment, before he continued. "Yes. I'm afraid you have. You need to understand something. Your friend Jesse died. What is inhabiting his body now is a demon. It looks like him, talks like him, even has his memories, but he is no longer the boy you knew. When you confront him again, you won't be looking at your friend. You'll be looking at the monster that killed him."

Both Willow and Xander looked miserable.

"I'm sorry, guys," Buffy said, when it looked like they were starting to really take in Giles' words.

After a few moments, she sighed over-dramatically at looked to Giles. "So, Giles, got anything that could make this day any worse?"

"How about the end of the world?"

"Knew I could count on you," Buffy said to him bitterly.

Giles took a moment to collect his thoughts and then spoke.

"This is what we know. Some sixty years ago, a very old, very powerful vampire came to this shore, not just to feed."

"He came 'cause this town's a mystical whatchamacallit?" Buffy guessed.

"Yes. The Spanish who first settled here called it 'Boca del Infierno.' Roughly translated, 'Hellmouth.' It's a sort of, um, portal between this reality and the next. This vampire hopes to open it."

"Bring the demons back," Buffy said, feeling depressed.

"End of the world," Xander added gloomily.

"But he blew it!" Willow said excitedly, adding the part she had found. "Or, I mean, there was an earthquake that swallowed half the town, and him, too."

"You see," Giles continued, "opening dimensional portals is a tricky business. Odds are he got himself stuck, rather like a cork in a bottle."

"And this Harvest thing is to get him out?" Xander asked.

Giles nodded once. "It comes once in a century, on this night. The Master can draw power from one of his minions while it feeds. Enough power to break free and open the portal. The minion is called the Vessel and he bears this symbol."

Giles went up to a white board and drew a strange three-pointed star.

"So, I dust anyone wearing that symbol, and no Harvest?" Buffy asked.

"If only it were that simple."

"What do you mean?"

"He means Jesse," Willow said, catching on.

"Exactly. What better Vessel than one that cannot be touched."

They were all quiet after that.

After a few moments, Xander stood up and walked away from the table. He disappeared behind a stack, and then there was a large, loud sound of him kicking a metal waste basket against a wall. The suddenness of it actually startled Buffy and Willow. He reappeared almost immediately, and moved to sit down.

"I've decided that I officially hate vampires," he told them in a way that almost seemed apologetic.

"I don't suppose we at least know where this little get-together is going down, do we?" Buffy asked, sounding more depressed than ever.

"The Bronze," Xander said simply, and everyone turned toward him again.

"Are you sure," Willow asked.

"Come on, all those tasty, young morsels all over the place? Anyway, that's where Jesse's going to be, trust me."

Giles stood up and went to retrieve his jacket from a nearby chair.

"Then we should get there. The sun will be down before long." The others stood up as well.

"Avengers assemble," Xander added quietly, with forced enthusiasm.

"I gotta make a stop. Won't take long," Buffy said.

"What for?"

"Supplies. Last time, they caught me unprepared. That is not happening this time. It's time to bring out the big guns."

"You've got guns?" Willow asked.

"Well, by 'guns' I mean 'stakes' – big long one in particular that I used to dust this skeevy guy who used to hit on me in chem class, when I so had a boyfriend. It's got sentimental value and really good heft."

"Oh, good, for a second there, I was worried that you wanted to burn down the Bronze."

Buff turned to Giles inquisitively.

"Is that an option?"

"It's not entirely off the table. For the moment, though, let's refer to that as Plan B."

* * *

Cain knelt before the Master and took his hand. He tried to hide the wince as he kissed it reverently. He knew he had to act out his part, but he was still a little uncomfortable about it. The Master then turned over his hand, his palm now facing him, and Cain bit into his flesh, drinking deep.

The blood that flowed down his throat, made him feel like he was on fire. It was more than just blood, it was his Master's power, his blessing. Cain released his hand, and the Master spoke.

"My blood is your blood, My soul is your soul."

"My body is your instrument," Cain quoted from memory.

The Master took a small amount of the blood still flowing from his wrist and used to draw a three-pointed star, the symbol of the Vessel, on his head.

"On this, most hallowed night, we are as one. Cain, my new son, is the Vessel!"

There was a moment then for all that to taken in by the crowd of vampires watching the ceremony.

"Every soul he takes will feed me. And their souls will grant me the strength to free myself. Tonight, I shall walk the Earth, and the stars themselves shall hide!" the Master finished with a roar.

Cain stood up then and faced Darla who was grinning at him wildly. He felt powerful then. With the Master's blood flowing through him, giving him strength, and his own powers assuring that he was untouchable, he felt like a god.

"Come on, babe. It's time to party."

**End of Chapter 5**


	6. Part 6

**Title:** Sunnydale Heroes – Part 6 of 7

**Author:** Wicked Raygun

**Summary:** AU. Superpowers change everything in this reinterpretation of "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest". Mild B/A, B/X and W/X.

**Disclaimer:** Based on characters created by Joss Whedon. I am merely borrowing them to put on a puppet show. Watch them dance.

**Notes:** This is not a crossover with the show 'Heroes.' This is merely me borrowing a concept I find intriguing and adding it to characters I love.

Also I have very little desire to do a word-for-word rewrite of the first two episodes of BTVS. Those kinds of stories seem a little pointless to me. Anyways, any inaccuracies that come up between my story and the actual episodes have to do with either a deliberate choice on my part, or me just not caring that much. Part 1 will have the most in common with the script, since it's slightly inevitable. After that, the story really does become mine.

Also, thanks go out to my beta readers, Grey Wizard and Alun Lewis.

**Distribution:** Ask and you shall receive. Just email me and I'll get back to you quickly using new-fangled technology. See, I get email on my phone now. Surely jet packs and flying cars are just around the corner.

* * *

The power was amazing.

As a vampire, he had been fast and strong to begin with. But now that he had the Master's blood working its dark mojo on his system, he felt truly godlike. His senses were sharper, his speed and strength had increased, and somehow even his phasing came to him easier, and it had been practically instinctual before.

Cain smiled.

All that was left was to feed, free the Master, and turn his friends. Xander had already shown that he was like him – well, not exactly like him, but still powerful. Willow, sadly, was still weak. But he had a gut feeling that as a vampire, with her sharp mind, she could be something fearsome. And if not, well, he could just kill her later.

Cain, followed by a group of vampire minions loyal to the Master, arrived at the Bronze. He spotted the doorman and smiled disarmingly at him.

"I.D.," the doorman asked in a bored voice.

Jesse's face shifted, revealing his true nature. With inhuman speed, he grabbed the doorman by the throat, pushed him against the wall, and lifted him, inches above the ground.

"Okay. But my driver's license doesn't really match my face, anymore, man. I've had some work done."

The struggling doorman, merely stared back in fear and shock as Jesse growled and moved quickly toward his bare neck to feed. Soon enough, the doorman was no more. When Jesse dropped the corpse to the ground, he stood back and shivered in pleasure.

"Whoo! What a rush!"

* * *

Back in his prison, The Master sat, waiting for his release. To pass the time, he thought of his new child.

He had a good feeling about Cain. He was still young and reckless, to be sure, but then all children are at first. In time, though, who knew what darkness he could unleash. And with his powers, he might even be able to start his own family some day. That brought a proud smile to his face.

The Master wasn't greedy, after all. Well, not too greedy. Avarice did have its pleasures. Still, perhaps he could give his son something on the East Coast. He hadn't been in New York very long himself, but he found the city to be absolutely delightful. Darla could help him out with that.

Speaking of which, she seemed absolutely taken with the boy. As far as he knew, she hadn't felt this strongly about another vampire since her dear, sweet Angelus, he thought with a sneer.

The Master shook his head, trying to clear away that thought. No sense in thinking on such unpleasant things, especially today, when he would finally be able to walk free and stalk the night again.

He thought again of Cain and Darla.

_Wouldn't it be something if those two __kids got together?_

His smile turned nostalgic. That would be lovely. She'd had such bad luck with men in the past, and he just wanted her to be happy. Still, he wouldn't push things. Oh, no. It was best to let these things work themselves out naturally.

And then the Master felt something powerful flow from his toes to his fingertips. _Yes!_ That must be his son, taking his first life. It was a shame he couldn't see for himself. Oh, well, no matter. He would just find a way to make it up to the boy.

His new son had given him a gift after all. He was already a little stronger, and soon he would be able to escape.

"Now, it begins."

* * *

Cain sauntered into the Bronze. If he was feeling great before, he was a walking orgasm now.

"Alright, you guys know the deal. Spread out, block the exits – you know, try to keep the carnage on the field – and absolutely **no** feeding. That's my job."

The vampires, except for Darla, moved to their tasks. As they walked away, he spotted Cordelia dancing with some of her own minions.

"Darla, hang back a moment. I need to see a girl about a dance."

Darla moved in front of him, a furious look on her features.

"What are you doing?" she asked with a hiss. "You're supposed to be feeding. Not puffing up your own ego."

"Hey, relax," he said softly, with a charming smile. "It's just a dance. No need to be jealous."

She scoffed. "My, my, aren't we being a presumptuous little boy."

In response, he trailed his fingers gently along her jaw, his fingertips softly phasing in and out along her skin, causing her to shiver. It felt almost like sparks.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Still, it is just a dance. It's the least I can do, before I rip out her spleen and show it to her." Cain smiled at her. "I promise, I'll be thinking about you the entire time."

Cain walked off, laughing softly to himself, leaving Darla standing there, unsettled by his actions.

His timing was perfect. Just as the current song Cordelia was dancing to was ending, he approached her. A new slower, darker tune could be heard as the next one picked up.

Fitting.

Cordelia was about to walk off to her table, when he gently grabbed her hand and pulled her close to him, leading her back to the dance floor.

"Hey! Hello! Caveman brain! What are you doing? And what the hell kind of fashion statement is that thing on your head?"

"Shut up," he told her gently, not caring about her objections, instead pulling her even closer.

Something about the way he said that did something to her. A nice little shiver went down her back.

"Well, just one dance."

* * *

Buffy tried the door, while Giles checked the doorman's pulse. He shook his head after a second, and, of course, the door was locked from the inside.

"Damn it! We're, too late!"

"Can you break it down?" Xander asked.

"No, not this thing. At least, not quickly. Uh, you guys try the back entrance. I'll find another way in.

"Right!" Giles said, and began to move off with Xander and Willow.

"Wait!" Buffy handed Willow her bag full of stakes, holy water, crosses and other various vampire slaying accoutrements.

"Just get people out the back. Don't go all X-Men on me. I mean it," she said, a glare punctuating her point.

Reminded for a second about their powers, Xander got an idea. He turned to Willow, and asked, "Doesn't the Bronze have a skylight?"

"Yeah."

Xander smiled and turned toward Buffy, who caught on quickly.

"Need a lift?"

A few moments later, Xander floated horizontally while holding Buffy's hands, her feet a good twenty feet to the Bronze rooftop. After seeing the particularly thick windows of the skylight, she had insisted on the current height. She could have just as easily smashed the windows in with her fists, but this felt more dramatic to her, and would hopefully keep surprise on her side for a few more seconds.

"Are you sure about this?"

"No, but let's do it, anyway," Buffy said, with a nervous chuckle.

She tried to look up into Xander's eyes.

"Let go."

After some brief hesitation, he did.

"Bombs away."

And the Slayer was unleashed on the Bronze.

* * *

Cain had a dilemma. Just which part of Cordelia's biology should he rip out?

Oh, sure, the heart might be a classic, but he had already done that once and didn't feel like repeating himself so soon. Just because he was new to murder, was no excuse for slacking off. After all, he intended to be good at it.

He smiled a short moment later, as he was suddenly hit with inspiration. Her eyes would look so beautiful rolling along on the floor. The thought was so pleasing, in fact, that it triggered his demon face without him realizing it.

And, unfortunately, Darla had instructed one of the minions to turn off the music and bring up the lights, which they did, at just that moment. When that happened, Cordelia got a good look at his true face, and screamed. It was so impressive and unexpected that he didn't even get a chance to grab her as she ran off as he reflexively covered his ears. Enhanced hearing had its downsides, as well.

Annoyed, he turned toward the stage to see Darla there, smirking.

"Well played," he admitted in a quiet voice.

Darla, in full demon face as well, stepped up to a microphone, and spoke over the din of confused voices.

"Tonight, the restoration of an ancient terror is at hand. The Master shall rise and bathe the world in eternal darkness," Darla said to the crowd, in a tone of voice one would use to inform someone of the probability of rain in a weather forecast.

"Those of you here tonight, will, sadly, not get a chance to see this brave new world. But you can take comfort in knowing that it was your life force that brought ruin to all that you hold dear. The carnage will be quick, but far from painless. You can struggle, if you like. In fact, we insist. It won't do you any good, of course, but it really does make things more fun for us."

The patrons of the Bronze simply stared at her, some in dumb shock, other in open-mouthed horror.

"Cain, start the killing," she told him sweetly.

Cain smiled. "Well, since you asked so nicely."

With a sudden movement, and a horrifying growl, he grabbed a girl standing next to him. He pulled her neck to the side so violently, that it actually snapped. Although she was technically still alive when he started to feed, she blessedly felt nothing. When she was drained, Cain dropped her body to the floor.

"That never gets old," he said giddily, and then launched himself onto another victim.

By this point, people had started screaming and trying to run away. Some, in their panic, even managed to trip others and trample them. The vampires all smiled at this, as they picked out people to hand over to Cain who kept feeding and feeding.

When Cain dropped his latest victim to the floor, he heard a loud crash, and saw Buffy fall from the skylight onto a pool table. She scanned the crowd, her eyes finally settling on the bloody symbol on his forehead.

"I'm, sorry. You were in the middle of something?" she asked with a smirk.

"Oh, look, it's the new girl," he said with a playful leer.

"Kill her!" Darla commanded the other vampires. She turned to Cain. "Keep feeding."

"Okey-dokey," he said with a mock salute.

While Buffy began taking on all the vampires that rushed her, Cain had set his sights on a cute-looking red-head that he was pretty sure he'd shared a history class with last semester.

With his speed now faster than ever, he rushed over to her. She was standing with a group that was futilely trying to open one of the exits. He grabbed her by her hair and pulled her into his clutches.

With a chuckle, he lowered his fangs to her neck.

"Let. Her. Go."

Cain looked up to see a nerdy-looking kid that he vaguely recognized from around school, but whose name he couldn't quite place.

"Sure, why not."

Cain dropped the girl, and then grabbed the kid by his throat, the entire action happened in the blink of an eye.

"Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're a complete non-entity around school, aren't you?"

He lifted him up in the air, and started to squeeze. When the kid started to make gagging noises, he chuckled.

"I guess you saw the bad man trying to hurt the pretty girl, with who – well, let's not kid ourselves here – you have absolutely **zero** shot with, and you must have thought to yourself that you want to play hero. Hey, I get it – perfectly understandable. I read comic books, too. But here's the problem with that, though. In real life, twerps like you are just meat for the strong. And, buddy, they don't get much stronger than me."

Cain laughed.

"Say, goodbye, Hero."

But then the kid abruptly vanished into thin air.

After a few moments of amazement, Cain scoffed to himself.

"Okay, that's it. I'm lodging a complaint at the next PTA meeting. The lunch lady is definitely putting something funky into the jell-o."

Then there was a loud noise, and suddenly a voice called out, "Everyone, get out, now!"

The terrified crowd didn't need to be told twice and, within seconds, a throng of people had converged on the voice, where a rear entrance had been opened. Many of them ran right past Cain. He took the moment to grab another victim and drain him as well.

* * *

Buffy, meanwhile, was feeling more than a little out of practice.

She could remember that night of the dance back at Hemery so clearly. There, she had been at the top of her game. Vampire after vampire came at her then, too, only to be put down quickly with a punch, a kick, and a stake to the heart. She even took one down with a somersault, and somehow managed to stake another while she was doing a one-handed cartwheel. She had been particularly proud of that.

But here in the Bronze, she was fighting for every inch of ground. Here, vampires were dying, too, but not as fast as she needed them to. And she wasn't exactly dazzling them with her superior gymnastics skills, either. Her muscles ached, her vision was slightly blurred, she couldn't even feel her left foot at all, and her face was one long, dull, throbbing ache that was going to be with her in the morning, she could already tell.

Assuming the World didn't end, of course.

And since when in the hell, did that become her responsibility? Okay, a vampire invasion she could handle. Some undead punk, with delusions of being Dracula wanted to throw down? Hey, not a problem.

But this?

She was standing at the Mouth of Hell, which was about to open and spew out, well, Hell on Earth. And, frankly, she was feeling a little inadequate.

"Move to Sunnydale. It's a nice quiet town!" she said to herself sarcastically, punctuating her last word with a swift kick to a vampire's chest.

Without a conscious thought, she plunged her stake behind her, catching a vampire sneaking up on her in the heart and dusting him. Buffy had never been particularly good at sensing the undead, but in a fight like this, she swore she could almost feel the attacks about to come.

And that would be useful, if there weren't so damn many of them.

Buffy was able to spare a moment to see Jesse finishing off another student. Another life gone, another person she couldn't save. And the Master was one step closer to opening the Hellmouth.

A simmering rage took hold of her. She sized up the last of the vampires fighting her. There were four of them.

There wouldn't be for long.

At that moment, it suddenly didn't matter how many of them were left. They were in her way, so they were all dead. They came at her, but somehow, their attacks felt clumsier, their punches felt weaker, and their movements felt slower.

She dodged, punched, stabbed, kicked and in barely thirty seconds, all four of them were piles on the floor.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer didn't even wait for the dust to settle before she went after the Vessel. She had to stop him. Nothing else mattered.

She threw a flying kick at his back, only to sail right past him.

He barely looked up from his meal. She tried to attack him again and again, but still nothing.

Before long, he dropped his latest meal to the floor and licked his lips.

"I'm kind of bad with names. Buffy, right?"

"Jesse," she answered coldly.

He smiled. "Actually, it's Cain, now. Jesse went bye-bye."

Buffy winced.

"So you're a Slayer, huh? That's cool. I dig strong chicks."

"Sorry. I tend to like my guys to be a little less bumpy-faced."

"See, that's just prejudiced. You shouldn't knock it, 'til you try it."

"Pass."

Cain chuckled for a moment, and then launched a devastating punch that Buffy couldn't block. It literally went right through her defenses and landed solidly on her face. She was knocked back, and had to shake her head to clear the ringing.

"You'll have to cut me some slack. I'm new to the whole evildoer thing. This is where we fight, right?"

Buffy drew her hand slowly across her lip, wiping off a small trickle of blood.

"Yeah. This is where we fight."

And then she launched her own attack.

* * *

There were simply far too many students rushing to the back entrance. The Bronze had apparently been packed that night. And the panicked masses weren't exactly moving in a calm and orderly fashion.

Giles weighed his options for a moment before he yelled to Xander and Willow.

"There's too many of them. I'll try and open the other door."

He grabbed the fire axe they used to open the first door and ran into the mass of people, disappearing quickly and leaving Xander and Willow to direct the madness.

"All right, everybody out. Stay Calm. Hey! Stop shoving people, Mister! You'll get your turn, too!"

Willow had apparently found her inner warrior princess, since she was taking to this quickly.

Xander, on the other hand, was fidgeting constantly. He kept trying to find Jesse, but couldn't spot him. Despite what Giles had told them, he was sure he could talk some sense into him, if he could just reach him.

The crowd was starting to thin out a bit, when he suddenly felt a sharp pain to his side. Xander crumpled to the ground, and his stake went flying from his hand to roll along the linoleum floor. He looked up to see Darla, smirking down at him.

"Hey, Xander. Miss me?"

She punched him in the face this time, and Xander had to consciously fight off the urge to just black out. Somehow, he managed to wrap his arms around the vampire in an awkward manner. Holding tightly, he used his power to blast up into the air as fast as he could.

They were stopped by the ceiling.

Gravity brought them back to the floor, in a pile. It did more damage to her, then it did to him, but she was a vampire and could take a lot more than he could, so she stood up first.

"That – was a mistake."

"Get away from him!"

Willow, seeing Xander in danger, threw up her hands at Darla and tapped as much of her power as she could.

And, apparently, that was a lot.

The vampire was hit with a powerful wave of energy that flung her all the way across the Bronze and into the far wall, which she smashed into and then through, leaving a considerable hole.

Xander got up next to Willow and stared at the damage.

"Xander?" she asked weakly.

"Yeah?"

"Did I just knock down a wall?"

"Yes. You did. You really did. And I'm very proud of you."

"Oh. Okay." Willow paused for a moment before speaking again. "Xander?"

"Yeah?"

"Little wobbly."

And sure enough, Willow looked like she was about to fall over. Xander caught her, and pulled her into a hug, to keep her from collapsing and to reassure himself that she was okay.

"That's okay, Wills. You did great."

"Better than Jean Grey?"

"Way better."

"That's nice," she said, with a slight slur. She snuggled a little into Xander's arm. "This is nice."

"Uh, Wills?"

"Hmm?"

"Bad guys."

"Oh, right." She shook her head, to try to clear some of the vertigo she was experiencing. It seemed to work, at least a little.

Giles came back, looking stunned. The fire axe was hanging limply at his side.

"Did she just knock down a wall?"

"Yeah. Wasn't that cool?"

Giles blinked. "Er, y-y-yes. Q-quite."

Xander turned his head to spot Jesse fighting with Buffy. With his powers, it was painfully one-sided.

"Giles, take Willow. I got to stop Jesse."

Without waiting for a reply, he placed Willow into his arms, and went off.

"Xander! Wait!"

* * *

Buffy was not feeling good. She had just taken far too many hits. Her tactics had changed as well.

Blocking Cain's attacks was impossible, so now she was simply dodging anything and everything he threw at her. Cain wasn't a trained fighter, thankfully, but he was still fast. Occasionally, she would attempt a kick or a punch. But, inevitably, he would simply let it pass through him and chuckle.

She was getting real sick of his smirking.

Initially, she thought to work her way behind him, to try for a surprise attack, but whenever she got close to pulling it off, he would simply dive through her, and reorient himself.

Buffy looked like a blur as she ducked, dodged, and weaved around all of Cain's blows. But the truth was that she was starting to slow down. And she just didn't know how much longer she could keep this up.

Buffy heard a whoosh, and then saw Xander crash into Cain at high speed. Buffy lifted up her stake to throw it at Cain, but when she finally had a clear shot, the stake passed through him and clattered on the floor.

She grunted in frustration.

Cain, on the other hand, was more amused and smirked down at his old friend on the floor.

"Xander! Buddy! Long see, no time."

"Jesse, man, you gotta stop this before it's too late," Xander said from his place on the floor, wincing with every other word.

"Ah, I see you didn't get the memo. I'm not Jesse anymore. I'm Cain."

Xander shook his head, refusing to believe that. "No, you're not. I know there's still a part of you in there."

Cain just laughed at him.

"Okay," he said, still chuckling a little. "Let's deal with this. Jesse was an excruciating loser who couldn't get a date in the sighted community. Me? I'm a god."

Cain suddenly spun around and sent a vicious kick to Buffy's face. She had been using the distraction to try and get him from behind. The kick sent her crashing into a pool table with such force that a chunk of it splintered off.

"With excellent hearing," he amended.

A moment later he caught a crossbow bolt in the air, leveled at his chest.

"And awesome reflexes."

Cain dropped the bolt to the floor and turned toward Giles, who was frantically loading another shot.

"Excuse me, but we were talking here," he said, before grabbing a chair and flinging it at him.

Willow, who had been behind Giles, panicked and unconsciously used her power to shield them both. The chair hit the invisible wall and shattered. But the effort, so soon after her last use, left her on her knees, exhausted.

"Willow!" Cain said, in a beaming voice. "I never knew you had it in you. You go, girlfriend!"

Xander and Buffy maneuvered themselves so that they all surrounded Cain in a triangle. Giles, who didn't move, kept an eye on Willow and his crossbow leveled at Cain.

He just smirked at them.

"You guys are really missing the big picture here. The Master's gonna rise tonight and rip this town a new one. That is happening. Nothing is stopping that, because nothing is stopping me. The way I see it, though, you guys can be there with me to see it. Nobody else can do what we can do. We'd be gods among gods."

Cain took a moment to look at Xander and then Willow. And the next words he spoke, sounded so much like their old friend, that it hurt them profoundly.

"I know how much your lives suck. How it hurts everyday, just to keep going through the motions, and pretending that it's okay to have folks who ignore you, or yell at you – or worse. It doesn't have to be this way. I mean, look at what we can do! We have freaking superpowers! If that isn't a clue that we were meant to always be together, then what is?

"So what do say, Xand? Wills? We kill these two idiots, and then we Three Amigos spend the rest of eternity living it up?"

Willow shook her head, as a tear ran down her face, while Xander looked like he was moments away from doing the same.

Xander looked down for a moment, and then pulled out a stake from behind him.

"You're really not Jesse, anymore, are you?" he said sadly, as he finally made eye contact with the monster wearing his friend's face.

Cain scowled at them, his earlier amusement now gone in the face of their rejection of his offer. He watched as they closed in on him slowly.

"Is this it? Is this your master plan? You all gang up on me, and do, what, exactly? Watch me kill you, one-by-one? You guys are kind of forgetting that I'm untouchable."

"You're forgetting something, too," Buffy said. "The dawn."

With a blur of action, Buffy threw a microphone stand at a heavily tinted window. And from this broken window poured a bright light right into Cain's eyes. He gasped as the light blinded him.

And then he felt a sudden pain in his chest.

Cain looked into the Slayer's eyes for a moment, not quite understanding what happened. How did she suddenly appear in front of him?

"I'm sorry, I couldn't save you. But I'll take better care of your friends. I promise," she told him sadly.

And then Cain crumpled into dust.

* * *

The Master was ecstatic. He was nearly free. All he needed was one more life, one more soul, and then he could finally break through to take his rightful place as leader of his kind and enslaver of humanity.

He laughed as his fingers probed against the wall, keeping him imprisoned. His fingers seemed to almost break through.

And then it was gone.

And that could only mean one thing.

"What? No! Nooooo!"

* * *

Back at the Bronze, four sad figures stood over a small pile of dust. They had won. The world had been saved. But the cost had been too high.

"Well," Xander said, decided to break the ice, "nothing's ever going to be the same, is it?"

Willow nodded at his words, but Buffy and Giles merely shared a look and then shrugged.

They knew better, after all.

**End of Part 6**


	7. Part 7

**Title:** Sunnydale Heroes – Part 7 of 7

**Author:** Wicked Raygun

**Summary:** AU. Superpowers change everything in this reinterpretation of "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest". Mild B/A, B/X and W/X.

**Disclaimer:** Based on characters created by Joss Whedon. I am merely borrowing them to put on a puppet show. Watch them dance.

**Notes:** This is not a crossover with the show 'Heroes.' This is merely me borrowing a concept I find intriguing and adding it to characters I love.

Also I have very little desire to do a word-for-word rewrite of the first two episodes of BTVS. Those kinds of stories seem a little pointless to me. Anyways, any inaccuracies that come up between my story and the actual episodes have to do with either a deliberate choice on my part, or me just not caring that much. Part 1 will have the most in common with the script, since it's slightly inevitable. After that, the story really does become mine.

Also, thanks go out to my beta readers, Grey Wizard and Alun Lewis.

**Distribution:** Ask and you shall receive. Just email me and I'll get back to you quickly using new-fangled technology. See, I get email on my phone now. Surely jet packs and flying cars are just around the corner.

* * *

It was a beautiful Southern California morning. And the students of Sunnydale High went about their business, oblivious to the fact that the world was nearly swallowed by the mouth of hell – or, at least, one of them.

Xander stared at them all, fascinated by their refusal to comprehend what had happened at the Bronze the previous night.

Distantly, he heard Cordelia tell one of her subordinates that it had been rival gangs fighting over turf – a gang whose members all just so happened to have similar facial deformities and a tendency to explode into dust when staked through the heart.

Jesse.

A pang shot through Xander, but he squelched it quickly. There was time to deal with that later. For now, he just wanted to get through the week without mentally shutting down.

Then he saw her.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

With all the insanity of the past couple of days, he had forgotten just how achingly beautiful she was. Now, it hit him allover again. She walked over to him with a sway and bounce that was hypnotic.

"What exactly were you expecting?" she asked, obviously referring to the lack of freaking out being displayed.

"I don't know – something. The dead rose. Metahumans walk among us. We should at least have an assembly."

They walked along for a moment until they were joined by Willow and Giles.

"People have a tendency to rationalize what they can, and forget what they can't," Giles said.

"Believe me, I've seen it happen," Buffy added.

"Well, I'll never forget. None of it," Willow said. Xander nodded in agreement.

"Good!" said Giles. "Next time you'll be prepared."

When Willow and Xander responded with surprised exclamations of protest, Giles continued.

"We've prevented the Master from freeing himself and opening the mouth of hell," he noted. "That's not to say he's going to stop trying. Especially since he probably believes that there may well be others like you and Jesse."

The teenagers grew quiet again at the reminder.

"He was unreal," Buffy said somberly. "Do you really think there are more kids on the Hellmouth with powers? Because it's not like vampires were exactly lacking with the ways to kill you before this. And the idea of fighting more meta-vamps doesn't exactly fill me with warm fuzzies."

"Which is exactly why we must find them first. Protect them. If possible, recruit them."

"Sunnydale High – School for the Gifted," Xander quipped.

"You'll all have to be trained of course," Giles continued, ignoring Xander.

"You'll learn to better use your powers, the art of armed and unarmed combat, tactics, demon lore – I daresay we'll be very busy. After all, we won't just be fighting vampires or even meta-vampires. The next threat we face may be something quite different."

"I can hardly wait!" Buffy said, her words dripping with sarcasm.

"We're at the center of a mystical convergence here. We may, in fact, stand between the Earth and its total destruction."

"Well, I gotta look on the bright side," Buffy declared, her voice filled with snark. "Maybe I can still get kicked out of school."

"Oh, yeah, that's a plan. 'Cause lots of schools aren't on Hellmouths," Xander said.

"Maybe you could blow something up. They're really strict about that," Willow said.

"I was thinking of a more subtle approach, y'know, like excessive not studying."

"I think I'll just fly, as in away."

Giles stopped walking, allowing the teenagers to continue their conversation without him, which had degenerated into a discussion about the possible merits of wearing a cape into battle. He sighed.

"The Earth is doomed."

* * *

It should have been impossible. But it was all real. He could stop time. He could teleport.

He was a superhero.

Jonathan Levinson: The Time Master.

Okay, so he was still working on the name. And he'd need a good one if he was going out to fight crime, protect the innocent – maybe even save some grateful damsels in distress, he'd think with glee.

Of course, he was just learning about his new powers; he'd only discovered them the previous day. His control over them was, at best, limited and could only be activated when he was under duress or concentrated very hard – which tended to give him a bit of a headache.

His inexperience had already led to a couple of awkward situations. One time he teleported himself inside of a locker, and the other into the girl's bathroom – and both times he had been trying to avoid Larry, a football jock and part-time bully.

He was moderately more successful with stopping time – which was awesome, but would again leave him with a considerable headache afterwards. He was getting rather fond of Tylenol as a result, which was worrying. The last thing he wanted was to develop an addiction to painkillers. Sure it may work for Daredevil, but he didn't really fancy himself to be a brooding, bad boy hero type with a monkey on his back.

Of course, that night, at the Bronze, he hadn't been thinking about saving the day – or character defining flaws, for that matter, either – only saving his own life.

When he'd felt Jesse's hands squeeze around his throat, his only thought was on escape. He'd wanted to be gone, to be anywhere else, so long as he wasn't being choked to death by a maniac with a hideous facial deformity. So without any real destination in mind, his powers activated.

And he was gone.

* * *

The next thing Jonathan was aware of was a sudden release of pressure from around his neck. Then unbalanced, he fell to the ground in an awkward heap.

When he was able to catch his breath, he looked around. He was in the middle of a traffic-choked street. There were cars everywhere, lined up for as far as he could see. But they were empty, dust-covered metal husks left stranded in the middle of the road, as if abandoned all at once.

Some of the cars were wrecked spectacularly – and in a few cases, were even flipped over on top of each other. Many were merely blackened metal skeletons, while others were warped and melted hunks of glass, metal and plastic – remnants of car fires, he assumed.

Eventually, though, his eyes were drawn to the sky and he froze.

_That's not natural. That's impossible._

A blood red haze filled the sky, from one horizon to the other, the sun filtering through as a mere dull white orb. He found he could stare at it with no apparent, immediate ill effects to his eyes. And Jonathan knew just enough about astronomy and human anatomy to be terrified by that realization.

His knees buckled and he collapsed gracelessly to the ground, landing on his rear. He stared for a long while at the sun, gradually becoming accustomed to the terror he felt.

The future, he thought. He had traveled into the future. That wasn't too hard to imagine, really. He had stopped time and teleported – those were amazing feats in and of themselves. So the idea that he had been able to teleport not only through space but also through time as well seemed plausible. Or at least as plausible as anything else he'd experienced in the past few days.

But how far into the future did he go?

Far, he answered himself. He had calmed a great deal while looking at the sky and was now beginning to analyze it more objectively. He slowly stood up and dusted himself off.

And then Jonathan spotted a bird – a very large bird. He frowned. The bird seemed to get larger and larger until Jonathan realized in horror that what was flying toward him was no bird.

"Oh, God!"

A primal instinct swept over him, telling him to run. He did, but not fast enough.

It landed in front off him. A giant beast easily twenty feet high, from stocky legs to serpentine neck. And then it roared. Jonathan fell over from the shocking force of it. The ground itself seemed to shake.

Dumbstruck, Jonathan silently watched as it approached him, hissing and snarling all the while. Unable to comprehend his situation in a rational manner, and panic overloading his brain, for only the briefest of moments was he able to finally summon a name for the nightmare that seemed bent on his destruction.

Dragon.

He was unable to even form a final coherent thought before he lost consciousness, and was only vaguely aware that he was going to die.

The dragon towered over his unconscious body and lowered its head to feed.

**The End**


End file.
